Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 7.djvu/183

Rh distance would not bo pleasing when near at hand; my doctrines of morality I knew could not be pleasing to all men; not to all good men. I saw by your looks that in my abstractions I did not go too far for your sympathy, or too fast for your following. I soon found that my highest thought and most pious sentiment were most warmly welcomed as such; but when I came to put abstract thought and mystical piety into concrete goodness, and translate what you had accepted as Christian faith into daily life; when I came to apply piety to trade, politics, life in general, I knew that I should hurt men's feelings. It could not be otherwise. Yet I have had a most patient and faithful hearing. One thing I must do in my preaching: I must be in earnest. I cannot stand here before you and before God, attempting to teach piety and goodness and not feel the fire and show the fire. The greater the wrong, the more popular, the more must I oppose it, and with the clearer, abler speech. It is not necessary for me to be popular to be acceptable, even to be loved. It is necessary that I should tell the truth. But let that pass. You come hither week after week, it is now year after year that you come, to listen to one humble man. Do you get poor in your souls? Does your religion become poor and low? Are you getting less in the qualities of a man? If so, then leave me to empty seats, to cold and voiceless walls; go elsewhere, and feed your souls with a wise passiveness, or an activity wiser yet. Such is your duty; let no affection for me hinder you from performing it. The same theology, the same form suits not all men. But if it is not so, if I do you good, if you grow in mind and conscience, heart and soul, then I ask one thing—Let your piety become natural life, your divinity become humanity.