Perhaps the disciples went to the old synagogue more sedulous than before; paid tithes; kept the new-moons; were sprinkled with the blood of the sacrifice; made low bows to the Levite; sought his savoury conversation, and kept the rules which a priest gave George Fox. But it would not do. There was too much truth to be hid. Even selfish Simon Peter has a cloven tongue of fire in his mouth, and he and the disciples go to their work, the new word swelling in their labouring heart.[1]
Then came the strangest contest the world ever saw. On the one side was all the strength of the world—the Jews with their Records, from the hand of Moses, David, and Esaias; “supernatural records,” that go back to the birth of time; their Law derived from Jehovah, attested by miracles, upheld by prophets, defended by priests, children of Levi, sons of Aaron, the Law which was to last for ever; the Temple, forty and seven years in being built, its splendid ceremonies, its beautiful gate and golden porch; there was the wealth of the powerful; the pride, the self-interest, the prejudice of the priestly class; the indifference of the worldly; the hatred of the wicked; the scorn of the learned; the contempt of the great. On the same side were the Greeks, with their Chaos of Religion, full of mingled beauty and ugliness, virtue and vice, piety and lust, still more confounded by the deep mysteries of the priest, the cunning speculations of the sophist, the awful sublimity of the sage, by the sweet music of the philosopher, and moralist and poet, who spoke and sung of man and God in strains so sweet and touching; there were rites in public; solemn and pompous ceremonies, processions, festivals, temples, games, to captivate that wondrous people; there were secret mysteries, to charm the curious and attract the thoughtful, Greece, with her Arts, her Science, her Heroes and her Gods, her Muse voluptuous and sweet. There too was Rome, the Queen of nations, and Conqueror of the world, who sat on her seven-hilled throne, and cast her net eastward and southward and northward and westward, over tower and city and realm and empire, and drew them to herself a giant's spoil; with a form of Religion haughty and insolent, that
- ↑ See Sermon of the Relation of Jesus to his Age and the Ages, by Theodore Parker, in Speeches, Vol. I. Art. I.
