Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 8.djvu/58

54 the restless activity of the American mind, which requires only right direction; in the facility with which books are printed and circulated; in the free schools, which have already done so vast and beautiful a work; in the free spirit of our institutions, which have hitherto made us victorious everywhere; but, above all, in that religion which was first revealed to a carpenter, earliest accepted by fishermen, most powerfully set forth by a tent-maker—that religion which was the Bethlehem-star of our fathers, their guide and their trust, which has nothing to fear, but everything to hope, from knowledge wide-spread among the people, and which only attains its growth and ripens its fruit when all are instructed—mind, heart and soul. With such encouragement who will venture to despair?