The Collected Works of Theodore Parker/Volume 02/Ten Sermons of Religion/Sermon 09
IX.
OF CONVENTIONAL AND NATURAL SACRAMENTS.
I WILL HAVE MERCY, AND NOT SACRIFICE. Matt. ix. 13.
Nothing in human experience is so lovely as the consciousness of God; nothing so tranquillizing, elevating, beautifying. See it on a merely personal scale in a man, imagine it on a national scale in a great people,—the natural development of religion into its various forms is one of the most beautiful phenomena of the world. But, alas! men too often love to meddle a little with nature; not simply to develope, complete, and perfect what begun spontaneously, but to alter after individual caprice, so that the universal, eternal, and unchangeable force is made to take the form of their personal, temporary, and shifting caprice.
Thus in old gardens you may see pines, yew-trees, and oaks clipped into fantastic and unnatural forms, looking like anything but trees, not works of nature, but tricks of skill. A fan, a pyramid, or a peacock is taken for the model of a tree, and the poor oak or yew is teased into some approach to that alien type. But the tree is always stinted, ugly, and short-lived under such treatment. Pliant nature assumes the form thrust on her, and then dies. So the savage, who has not yet learned to clothe his body, colours it with gall-nuts or ochre, tattooes his fancy upon his skin, mutilates the members, and hangs "barbaric pearl and gold " where nature left no need nor room for ornament. Civilized nations cut off the manly beard, and scrimp and screw the female form, warping, twisting, distorting, and wasting the dear handiwork of God. So we see men, as those trees, walking in a vain show far astray from the guidance of nature, looking as if "nature's journeymen had made them, and not made them well, they imitate humanity so abominably."
But man is not content to meddle with his body. He must try his hand on the soul, warping and twisting, tattooing and mutilating that also, colouring it with ochre and gall-nuts of more astringent bite, and hanging barbaric pendants thereon. Attempts are made to interfere with the religious faculty, and give it a conventional direction; to make it take on certain forms of human caprice, not human nature. Some monstrous fancy is adopted for the model man, and then common men are clipped, and pruned, and headed down, or bent in, and twisted into a resemblance to that type. Nay, men are thought to be religious, just as they conform to the unnatural abomination." God likes none but the clipped spirit," quoth the priest. "No natural man for Him. Away with your whole men. Mutilation is the test of piety!"
If some Apelles or Michael Angelo could paint the religious condition of mankind, and represent by form and colour to the eye all this mutilation, twisting, distorting, and tattooing of the invisible spirit, what a sight it would be,—these dwarfs and cripples, one-legged, one-eyed, one-handed, and half-headed, half-hearted men ! what a harlequin-show there would be! what motley on men's shoulders! what caps and bells on reverend heads, and tattooing which would leave Australia far behind ! What strange jewels are the fashionable theological opinions of Christendom! Surely such liveries were never invented before! In that picture men would look as striped as the Pope's guard. And if some Adamitic men and women were also represented, walking about in this varicoloured paradise of theology, arrayed in the natural costume of religion, "when unadorned, adorned the most," how different they would seem! Truly that gibbeting of theological folly in a picture would be a more instructive "Last Judgment" than even the great Michael ever thought of painting.
In all forms of religion hitherto there has been noticed, not merely the natural difference between right and wrong, good and evil, but also an artificial and conventional difference between things sacred and things profane. Some things are deemed common and laical; others are called holy and clerical. This conventional distinction begins early, extends wide, and will outlast you and me a great many years. Thus, what is now-a-days said under oath is officially thought a holy and clerical sort of truth; while what is said without oath, though equally correspondent with facts, is officially considered only a common and laical sort of truth. Some persons, as atheists and such as deny the immortality of the soul, are thought incapable of this clerical truth, and so not allowed to swear, or otherwise testify, in court.
In earlier ages of the world, and even now, this conventional distinction between laical and clerical, sacred and profane, applies to places, as groves, hill-tops, temples, and the like; to times, as new moons with one, full moons with another, Friday with the Turks, Saturday with the Jews, Sunday with the Christians; to things, as statues of saints and deities, the tools of public worship; to persons, and some are set apart from mankind as "the Lord's lot," and deemed holy; to actions, some of which are reckoned pleasing to God, not because they are naturally right, good, beautiful, or useful, but only as conventionally sacred ; and to opinions, which for the same reason were pronounced revealed, and so holy and clerical.
The laws of the land, for a long time, observed this artificial distinction. Thus a blow struck in a church or temple brought a severer punishment on the offender than if given elsewhere. Even now in Boston it is lawful to "gamble," except on Saturday night and Sunday; and all common work on that day is penal. Formerly it was legally thought worse to steal church property than any other. To rob a beggar was a small thing; it was a great sin to steal from a meeting-house. To take a whole loaf from a baker's basket was a trifle, but to steal the consecrated wafer from the church-box brought the offender to the stake. Says Charlemagne, "Less mercy is to be shown to men who rob and steal from the church, than to common thieves." In New England, until lately, for striking a clergyman a man was punished twice as much as for striking a layman; not because a bishop is to be blameless, "no striker," and so less likely, and less able, to retaliate, but because he is a holy person. Not long ago there was no penalty in this State for disturbing a moral meeting, but a severe one for disturbing a religious meeting. Opinions connected with religion have had laws to defend them. It was once a capital crime to deny the Trinity, or the inspiration of the Song of Solomon, while a man might deny all the axioms of Euclid, all the conclusions of science, and the law let him alone. It seems that these artificial and foreign "sacred things" cannot take care of themselves so well as the indigenous "things of this world." Religion was thought to extend to certain places, times, things, persons, actions, and opinions, and the law gave them a peculiar protection; but religion was not thought to extend much further. So the law stopped there. About three hundred years ago, an Italian sculptor was burned alive, in Spain, for breaking a statue he had himself made, being angry because the customer would not pay the price for it. The statue was a graven image of the Virgin Mary. Had it been the image of his own mother, he might have ground it to powder if he liked, or he might have beat his own living wife, and had no fault found with him.
There was a deeper reason for this capricious distinction than we sometimes think. Religion ought to be the ruler in all the affairs of men; but before we come to the absolute religion, which will one day do this, men begin with certain particular things which they claim as divine. Religion is to have eminent domain over them, while over other things it has a joint jurisdiction with "the world." It was well that their idea of religion went as far as it did. In the Middle Ages, if a fugitive slave fled to the Catholic Church and got to the altar, his masters had no legal right to touch him but by permission of the priest. The bishop interfered, made terms with the masters, and then delivered him up or not as they promised well or ill. The spirit of religion was supposed to rule in the church, and to protect the outcast. Men counselled wiser than they knew. It was a good thing that religion, such a rude notion as men had of it, prevailed in that narrow spot. When the tyrant would not respect God in all space, it was well that he should tremble before the sanctuary of a stone altar in a meeting-house. He would not respect a man, let him learn by beginning with a priest. If a murderer or a traitor took refuge in the heathen temples, nobody could drive him away or disturb him, for only God had jurisdiction in the holy place. So was it with the Hebrew cities of refuge: without, the atrocity of the world prevailed; within was the humanity of religion. The great begins small.
I believe there is no nation acquainted with fire but makes this artificial distinction. It is the first feeble attempt of the religious faculty to assume, power in the outward world ; in due time it will extend its jurisdiction over all time and space, over all things, all thoughts, all men, all deeds.
It is curious to see how this faculty goes on enlarging its territory: one day religion watches over the beginning of human life; then over its end; next over its most eminent events, such as marriage, or the entrance upon an office, making a will, or giving testimony, all of which are connected with some act of religion. You see what it all points towards,—a coordination of all human faculties with the religious. Here is the great forest of human life,—a tangled brushwood, full of wild appetites and prowling calculations,—to be cleared up. Religion hews down a few trees, burns over a little spot, puts in a few choice seeds, and scares off therefrom the wild beasts of appetite, the cunning beasts of calculation. This is only the beginning of clearing up the whole forest. What pains the savage in New England took with his little patch of artichokes, beans, pumpkins, and corn! With his rude tools, how poorly he dug and watered it, and for what a stingy harvest! He often chose the worst spot, he knew no better, and got but small return, not knowing how to make bread out of the ground. His garden was a very little patch in the woods, and looked ridiculous beside the square leagues of wild woodland, a howling wilderness, that reached from the Kennebec to the Mississippi. But it was the first step towards cultivating the whole continent. So is it with the sacred things of the Hottentot and the Hebrew, the Caffre and the Christian. Let us not despise the rude commencement of great things.
To simplify the matter, let us consider only the Actions pronounced religious. Certain deeds are selected and declared sacred, not on account of their natural usefulness or beauty, but by some caprice. These are declared the "ordinances of religion," the "sacraments" thereof,—things which represent and express religion,—which it is pronounced religious to do, and irreligious not to do. If there is a national form of religion, then there is a national sacrament, established by authority; so a social sacrament for society, established, like the "law of honour," by custom, the tacit consent of society. Thus is there a domestic sacrament for the family, and a personal ordinance of religion for the individual man. Accordingly, these conventional actions come to be thought the exclusive expression of religion, and therefore pleasing to God; they are not thought educational, means of growth, but final, the essential substance of religion. Some man is appointed to look after the performance of these actions, and it is thought desirable to get the greatest possible number of persons to participate in them; and he that turns many to these conventional sacraments is thought a great servant of God.
Look at some of these artificial sacraments. The Indians of New England left tobacco or the fat of the deer on the rocks, an offering to the Great Spirit. With them it was an "ordinance of religion," and stood for an act of piety and morality both. The clerical Powwows recommended the action to the people. What a time they had of it, those red savages here in the woods! It was thought impious not to perform the ritual act; but their religion did not forbid its votary to lie, to steal, to torture his foe with all conceivable cruelty. Two thousand years ago our Teutonic fathers in the North of Europe worshipped a goddess named Hertha. They had a forest consecrated to her on an island; therein was a sacred image of her, which was, now and then, carried about the country, on a carriage drawn by cows,—the statue covered with cloth and hid from sight. War was suspended wherever the chariot came, and weapons of iron put out of sight. It was then washed in a certain lake; and, to shroud the whole in grim mystery, the priests who had performed the ritual act were drowned in the same lake. This was the great national sacrament of the people. It was wholly artificial, neither useful nor beautiful. The statue was an idol of wood; the cows who drew it were no better than other cows. There was nothing holy in the image, the grove, or the ceremony; the drowning of the priests was a cruel butchery. As a sacrament the New-Hollander cuts off the last joint of the little finger of his son's left hand; it is an offering to God, who has made the finger a joint too long for piety.
The Hebrews had their outward ordinances of religion,—two personal sacraments of universal obligation, binding on each man,—circumcision, and rest on the Sabbath. There were two more national sacraments, binding on the nation,—the formal worship of Jehovah, in Jerusalem, at stated times, and by a prescribed ritual; and the celebration of the three national festivals. These were the sacraments of religion. To eat the paschal lamb was a "virtue," to taste swine's flesh a "sin." It was a capital crime to heal a sick man on Saturday. All these were artificial. Circumcision was a bad thing in itself, and gets its appropriate hit in the New Testament. Rest on the seventh day was no better than on the first; no better than work on the second; and worship in Jerusalem, at that time, and by that form, no better than worship at Jericho, by another form, and at a different time. The three feasts were no better than the festivals of Easter and of Yule. Yet those things were made the tests of piety and of immorality. Not to attend to them was deemed impiety against God. The Hebrew priest took great pains to interest the people in all this matter, to have the sacrifices offered, circumcision performed, the Sabbath and the feasts kept. He who hobbled the most in this lame way, and on these artificial crutches, was thought the greatest priest. What a reputation did puritanical Nehemiah get by his zeal in these trifles! But when Jesus of Nazareth came, his heart full of natural religion, he made away with most of these ordinances.
Amongst Christians in general there is one specific sacramental opinion,—that Jesus of Nazareth is the only Son of God. The opinion itself is of no value. You may admit all the excellence of Jesus, and copy it all, and yet never have the opinion. I do not find that the historical person, Jesus, had any such opinion at all. Nay, the opinion is an evil, for it leads men to take this noble man and prostrate their mind and conscience before his words; just as much as Jesus is elevated above the human is man sunk below it. But for ages, in the Church, this has been thought the one thing needful to make a man a Christian, to make him "pious" and acceptable to God,—the great internal ordinance and subjective sacrament of religion.
In the Catholic Church there is another sacramental opinion distinctive of that Christian sect,—the belief that the Roman Church is divine and infallible. The Protestants have also their distinctive, sacramental opinion,—that the Scriptures are divine and infallible. The consistent Catholic tells you there is no salvation without the belief of his sentimental doctrine; consistent Protestants claim the same value for their Shibboleth. So a man is to be "saved," and "reconciled with God" by faith; a general faith,—the belief that Jesus of Nazareth is the only Son of God; a particular faith, — the belief in the divine and infallible Church, or the divine and infallible Scriptures.
Then the Catholics have certain additional outward sacraments, which are subsidiary, and called the "ordinances of religion,"—such as baptism, confirmation, penance, extreme unction, and the like. The Protestants have likewise their additional outward sacraments subsidiary to the other, and which are their "ordinances of religion,"—such as bodily presence at church, which is enjoined upon all, and is the great external artificial sacrament of the Protestants; baptism for a few; communion for a selecter few; and belief in all the doctrines of the special sect,—an internal sacrament which is actually enjoyed by only tho smallest portion of the selectest few. Now all of these are purely artificial sacraments. They are not good in themselves. Each of them has once had an educational value for mankind; some of them still have, to a portion of mankind. But they are not valued for their tendency to promote natural piety and natural morality, only as things good in themselves; not as means to the grace and helps to the glory of religion, but as religion itself. Ecclesiastically it is thought just as meritorious a thing to attend the preaching of a dull, ignorant, stupid fellow, who has nothing to teach and teaches it, as to listen to the eloquent piety of a Fenelon, Taylor, or Buckminster, or to the beautiful philanthropy of St Eoch, Oberlin, or Channing. Bodily presence in the church being the sacrament, it is of small consequence what bulk of dulness presses the pulpit while the sacrament goes on. There is a "real presence," if naught else be real. An indifferent man baptized with water is thought a much better "Christian" than a man full of piety and morality but without the elemental sprinkling.
If you ask a New England Powwow for proof of the religious character of a red man, he would have cited the offering of tobacco to the Great Spirit ; a Teutonic priest would refer to the reverence of his countrymen for the ceremony just spoken of; a New-Hollander would dwell on the devotion of his neighbours, and show the little fingers cut off; a Hebrew would expatiate on the sacrament of circumcision, of Sabbath-keeping, of attendance upon the formal sacrifice at Jerusalem, the observance of the three feasts, and abstinence from swine's flesh; the Christian dwells on his distinctive sacramental opinion, that Jesus is the Son of Jehovah. Ask the Catholic priests for proof that Joseph is a Christian, they will tell you, "He believes in the divine and infallible Roman Church, and receives its sacraments;" ask the Protestant priests for a proof of their brother's piety, they will refer to his belief in the divine and infallible Scriptures, to his attendance at church, his baptism with water, his communion in wine and bread; and, if he is an eminent "saint," to his belief in all the technical opinions of his sect. True, they may all add other things which belong to real religion, but you will find that these artificial sacraments are the things relied on as proofs of religion, of Christianity, the signs of acceptableness with God, and of eternal bliss. The others are only "of works,"—these "of faith;" one of "natural religion," the next of "revealed religion;" morality is provisional, and the sacraments a finality.
Accordingly, great pains are taken to bring men to these results. If a minister does this to large numbers, he is called "an eminent servant of the Lord,"—that is, a great circumciser, a great sprinkler or plunger. Francis Xavier "converted" thousands of men to what he called Christianity; they took the sacrament of belief, and of baptism,—in due time the others; and Francis was made a saint. But it does not appear that he made them any better men, better sons, brothers, husbands, fathers, better neighbours and friends. He only brought them to the artificial sacrament. It is often the ambition of a Protestant minister to extend the jurisdiction of his artificial sacraments, to bring men to baptism and communion, not to industry, temperance, and bodily well-being; not to wisdom, justice, friendship, and philanthropy; not to an absolute love of God, a joyous, absolute faith in the Dear Mother of us all.
Let us do no injustice to those poor, leaky vessels of worship which we have borrowed from the Egyptians to whom we were once in bondage. They all have had their use. Man sets up his mythologies and his sacraments to suit his condition of soul at the time. You cannot name a ceremony connected with religion, howsoever absurd or wicked it may appear, but once it came out of the soul of some man who needed it; and it helped him at the time. The tobacco offered to Hobomock at Narragansett, the procession of Hertha in Pannonia, the ritual mutilation in New Holland, in Judea, or, still worse, in Phrygia and Crete, all once had their meaning. Nay, human sacrifice was once the highest act of worship which some dark-minded savage could comprehend, and in good faith the victim was made ready at Mexico or at Moriah. But the best of them are only educational, not final; and the sooner we can outgrow those childish things, the better. Men often mock at such things. What mouths Arnobius and Augustine made at the heathen superstitions, taking their cue from pagan Lucian of Sainosata, the prince of scoffers; they have given the face of Christendom an anti-Pagan twist which it keeps to this day. How Voltaire and his accomplished coadjutors repeated the mock, at the cost of the followers of Augustine and Arnobius! This is hardly wise, and not reverent. Those things are to be regarded as the work of children who have their snowhouses in winter, their earth-houses in summer, their games and plays,—trifles to us, but serious things to the little folk; of great service in the education of the eye and hand,—nay, of the understanding itself. How the little boy cries because he cannot spin his top like the older brothers! He learns to spin it, and is delighted with its snoring hum; learning skill by that, he by and by goes on to higher acts of boyish life. So is it with these artificial sacraments. Xavier brought a new top to the men of India; Charlemagne slew the Saxons who would not accept his,—as rude boys force the little ones from old to new sports.
It is no evil to have some things of the sort; no more than it is for a boy to ride a stick before he can mount a horse; or for a little girl to fill her arms with a Nuremberg baby before she can manage human children. Only the evil is, that these things are thought the real and natural sacrament of religion ; and so the end thereof is lost in the means. That often happens, and is fatal to religious growth. If the boy become a man, still kept to his wooden stick, counting it a real horse, better than all the trotters and pacers in Connecticut, if he had stables for sticks in place of steeds, and men to groom and tend his wooden hobby; if the girl, become a woman now, still hugged her doll from Nuremberg, making believe it was a child,—loved it better than sons and daughters, and left her own baby to dandle a lump of wood, counting a child only provisional, and the doll a finality,—then we should see the same error that was committed by Xavier and others, and repeated by clergymen and whole troops of Christians. I have seen assemblies of Christian divines, excellent and self-denying men, in earnest session and grave debate, who seemed to me only venerable boys riding cockhorse on their grandam's crutch. The general Christian belief, that Jesus was the Son of God, is now no spiritual sacrament; the specific belief of the Catholic or Protestant at this day is worth no more. Nay, all these stand in the way of the human race, and hinder our march. So the outward Christian sacraments —baptism, confirmation, communion, confession, penance, and the rest—seem to me only stones of stumbling in the way of mankind; they are as far from the real ordinances of religion as dandling a doll is from the mother's holy duty.
The natural and real ordinance of religion is in general a manly life, all the man's faculties of body and spirit developed or developing in their natural and harmonious way, the body ruled by the spirit, its instincts all in their places, the mind active, the conscience, the affections, the soul, all at work in their natural way. Religion is the sacrament of religion; itself its ordinance. Piety and goodness are its substance, and all normal life its form. The love of God and the love of man, with all that belongs thereto, worship with every limb of the body, every faculty of the spirit, every power we possess over matter or men,—that is the sacramental substance of religion; a life obedient to the love of God and of man,—that is the sacramental form of religion. All else is means, provisional; this the end, a finality. Thus my business, my daily work with the hand, if an honest and manly work, is the ordinance of religion to my body; seeking and expressing truth and beauty is the ordinance of religion to my mind; doing justice to all about me is the moral ordinance of religion; loving men is the natural sacrament of the affections; holiness is the natural ordinance of the soul. Putting all together,—my internal consciousness of piety and goodness, my outward life which represents that, is the great natural sacrament, the one compendious and universal ordinance. Then my religion is not one thing, and my life another; the two are one. Thus religion is the sacrament of religion, morality the test of piety.
If you believe God limited to one spot, then that is counted specifically holy ; and your religion draws or drives you thither. If you believe that religion demands only certain particular things, they will be thought sacramental, and the doing thereof the proof of religion. But when you know that God is infinite, is everywhere, then all space is holy ground; all days are holy time; all truth is God's word; all persons are subjects of religious duty, invested with unalienable religious rights, and claiming respect and love as fellow-children of the same dear God. Then, too, all work becomes sacred and venerable ; common life, your highest or your humblest toil, is your element of daily communion with men, as your act of prayer is your communion with the Infinite God.
This is the history of all artificial sacraments. A man rises with more than the ordinary amount of religion; by the accident of his personal character, or by some circumstance or event in his history, he does some particular thing as an act of religion. To him it is such, and represents his feeling of penitence, or resolution, or gratitude, or faith in God. Other men wish to be as religious as he, and do the same thing, hoping to get thereby the same amount of religion. By and by the deed itself is mistaken for religion, repeated again and again. The feeling which first prompted it is all gone, the act becomes merely mechanical, and thus of no value.
Thousands of years ago some man of wicked ways resolved to break from them and start anew, converted by some saint. He calls the neighbours together at the side of the Euphrates, the Jordan, or the Nile,—elements which he deems divine,—and plunges in: "Thus I will wipe off all ancient sin," says he; "by this act I pledge myself to a new life,—this holy element is witness to my vow ; let the saints bear record!" The penitence is real, the resolution is real, the act of self-baptism means something. By and by other penitent men do the same, from the same motive, struck by his example. Crowds look on from curiosity ; a few idly imitate the form ; then many from fashion. Soon it is all ceremony, and means nothing. It is the property of the priest; it is cherished still, and stands in place of religion. The single, momentary dispensation of water is thought of more religious importance than the daily dispensation of righteousness. Men go leagues long on pilgrimage,—to dip them in the sacred stream, and return washed, but not clean; baptized, but neither beautiful nor blameless. At length it is thought that baptism, the poor, outward act, atones for a life of conscious sin. Imperial Constantine, hypocritical and murderous, mourning that the Church will not twice baptize, is converted, but cunningly postpones his plunge till old age, that he may sin his fill, then dip and die clean and new.
So is it with all artificial forms. When they become antiquated, the attempt to revive them, to put new life therein, is always useless and unnatural ; it is only a show, too often a cheat. At this day the routine of form is valued most by those who care only for the form, and tread the substance underneath their feet. Put the wig of dead men's hair on your bald head, it is only a barber's cap, not nature's graceful covering, and underneath, the hypocritic head lies bald and bare. Put it on your head if you will, but do not insist that little children and fair-haired maids shall shear off the locks of nature, and hide their heads beneath your deceitful handiwork. The boy is grown up to manhood, he rides real horses; nay, owns, tames, and rears them for himself. How idle to ask him to mount again his hobby, or to ride cockhorse on his grandam's crutch once more! You may galvanize the corpse into momentary and convulsive action, not into life. You may baptize men by the thousand, plunging them in the Jordan and Euphrates, Indus, Ganges, and Irrawaddy, if you will, surpassing even Ignatius and Francis Xavier. Nay, such is the perfection of the arts, that, with steam and Cochituate to serve you, you might sprinkle men in battalions, yea, whole regiments at a dash. What boots it all? A drop of piety is worth all the Jordan, Euphrates, Indus, Ganges, Irrawaddy,—worth all the oceans which the good God ever made.
Men love dramatic scenes. Imagine, then, a troop of men—slave-traders, kidnappers, and their crew—come up for judgment at the throne of Christ. "Behold your evil deeds" cries Jesus in their ears. "Dear Lord," say they, "speak not of that; we were all baptized, in manhood or in infancy, gave bodily presence at a church, enrolled our names among the priest's elect, believed the whole creed, and took the sacrament in every form. What wouldst thou more, dear Christ? Dost thou ask provisional morality of us? Are not these things ultimate, the finality of salvation?" I always look with pain on any effort to put the piety of our times into the artificial sacraments of another and a ruder age. It is often attempted, sometimes with pure and holy feelings, with great self-denial ; but it is always worthless. The new wine of religion must be put into new bottles. See what improvements are yearly made in science, in agriculture, weaving, ship -building, in medicine, in every art. Shall there be none in religion, none in the application of its great sentiments to daily life ? Shall we improve only in our ploughs, not also in the forms of piety?
At this day great pains are taken to put religion into artificial sacraments, which, alas! have no connection with a manly life. I do not know of a score of ministers devoting their time and talents solely to the advancement of natural piety and natural morality. I know of hundreds who take continual pains to promote those artificial sacraments,—earnest, devout, and self-denying men. Why is this so? It is because they think the ceremony is religion; not religion's accidental furniture, but religion itself. It is painful to see such an amount of manly and earnest effort, of toil and self-denial and prayer, devoted to an end so little worth. The result is very painful, more so than the process itself.
We call ourselves a Christian people, a religious nation. Why? Are we a religious people because the heart of the nation is turned towards God and his holy law? The most prominent churches just now have practically told us, that there is no law of God above the statute politicians write on parchment in the Capitol; that Congress is higher than the Almighty, the President a finality ; and that God must hide his head behind the Compromise! Is it because the highest talent of the nation, its ablest zeal, its stoutest heroism, is religious in its motive, religious in its aim, religious in its means, religious in its end? Nobody pretends that. A respectable man would be thought crazy, and called a "fanatic," who should care much for religion in any of its higher forms. Self-denial for popularity and for money or office, that is common; it abounds in every street. Self-denial for religion,—is that so common? Are we called Christians because we value the character of Jesus of Nazareth, and wish to be like him? Is it the ambition of calculating fathers, that their sons be closely like the friend of publicans and sinners ? Nay, is it the ambition of reverend and most Christian clergymen to be like him?—I mean, to think with the freedom he thought withal; to be just with such severe and beauteous right- eousness; to love with such affection,—so strong, yet so tender, so beautiful, so wide, so womanly and deep? Is it to have faith in God like his absolute trust; a faith in God's person and his function too; a faith in truth, in justice, in holiness, and love; a faith in God as Cause and Providence, in man as the effect and child of God? Is it the end of laymen and clergymen to produce such a religion,—to build up and multiply Christians of that manly sort?
Compliance with forms is made the test of piety, its indispensable condition. These forms are commonly two- fold: liturgical,—compliance with the ritual; dogmatical, —compliance with the creed. It is not shown that the rite has a universal, natural connection with piety ; only that it was once historically connected with a pious man. Nobody thinks that circumcision, baptism, or taking the Lord's supper, has a natural and indispensable connection with piety; only it is maintained that these things have been practised by pious men, and so are imposed on others by their authority. It is not shown that the creed has its foundation in the nature of man, still less in the nature of God; only that it rested once in the consciousness of some pious man, and has also been imposed on us by authority. So, it is not shown that these tests have any natural connection with religion; only that they once had an historical connection; and that, of course, was either temporary, naturally ending with the stage of civilization which it belonged to, or even personal, peculiar to the man it begun with.
Yet it is remarkable how much those temporary or mere personal expedients are set up as indispensable conditions and exclusive tests of piety. The Catholic Church, on the whole, is an excellent institution; Christendom could no more do without it, than Europe dispense with monarchies; but the steadfast Catholic must say, "Out of the Church there is no piety, no religion beyond the Church's ritual and creed." The Protestant churches are, on the whole, an excellent institution; Christendom could no more dispense with them, than New England with her almshouses and jails; but the steadfast Protestant will say, "There can be no piety without accepting the Bible as the word of God, no saving religion without faith in the letter of Scripture." Not only has the Catholic his Shibboleth and the Protestant his, but each sect its own. The Calvinist says, "There is no piety without a belief in the Trinity." The Unitarians say, "There is no piety without a belief in the miracles of the New Testament." The Jews require a knowledge of Moses; Mahometans, a reverence for their prophet; and Christians, in general, agree there is no "saving piety" without submissive reverence to Christ. The late Dr Arnold, a most enlightened and religious man, declared that he had no knowledge of God except as manifested through Jesus Christ. Yet all the wide world over, everywhere, men know of God and worship Him,— the savage fearing, while the enlightened learns to love.
Since compliance with the ritual and the creed is made the sole and exclusive test of piety, religious teachers aim to produce this compliance in both kinds, and succeeding therein, are satisfied that piety dwells in their disciples' heart. But the ritual compliance may be purely artificial; not something which grows out of the man, but sticks on. The compliance with the doctrine may be apparent, and not real at all. The word belief is taken in a good many senses. It does not always mean a total experience of the doctrine, a realizing sense thereof; not always an intellectual conviction. They often are the best believers of the creed who have the least experience in the love of God, but little intellect, and have made no investigation of the matter credited. Belief often means only that the believer does not openly reject the doctrine he is said to hold. So the thing thus believed is not always a new branch growing out of the old bole; nor is it a foreign scion grafted in, and living out of the old stock, as much at home as if a native there, and bearing fruit after its better kind; it is merely stuck into the bark of the old tree,—nay, often not even that, but only lodged in the branches,—fruitless, leafless, lifeless, and dry as a stick,—a deformity, and without use.
In this way it comes to pass that compliance with the rite, and belief in a doctrine, which in some men were the result of a long life of piety and hard struggle, actually mean nothing at all. So that the ritual and the creed have no more effect in promoting the "convert's n piety and morality, than would belief in the multiplication-table and the habit of saying it over. You are surprised that the doctrines of Christ do not affect the Christian, and ceremonies which once revolutionized the heart they were born in, now leave the worshipper as cold as the stone beneath his knee. Be not astonished at the result. The marble does not feel the commandments which are graven there; the communion chalice never tastes the consecrated wine. The marble and metal are only mechanical in their action; it was not meant that they should taste or feel.
Then piety, as a sentiment, is taken as the whole of religion; its end is in itself. The tests, liturgical or dogmatic, show that piety is in the man; all he has next to do is to increase the quantity. The proof of that increase is a greatening of love for the form and for the doctrine; the habit of dawdling about the one and talking about the other. The sentiment of religion is allowed to continue a sentiment, and nothing more; soon it becomes less, a sentimentalism, a sickly sentiment which will never beget a deed.
It is a good thing to get up pious feeling; there is no. danger we shall have too much of that. But the feeling should lead to a thought, the thought to a deed, else it is of small value; at any rate, it does not do all of its work for the individual, and nothing for any one beside. This religious sentimentality is called Mysticism or Pietism, in the bad sense of those two words. In most of the churches which have a serious purpose, and are not content with the mere routine of office, it is a part of the pastor's aim to produce piety, the love of God. That is right, for piety, in its wide sense, is the foundation of all manly excellence. But in general they seem to know only these liturgical and dogmatic tests of piety; hence they aim to have piety put in that conventional form, and reject with scorn all other and natural modes of expressing love to God.
It is a good thing to aim to produce piety, a great good: an evil, to limit it in this way; a great evil, not to leave it free to take its natural form; a very great evil, to keep it indoors so long, that it becomes sick and good for nothing, not daring to go out at all.
It is remarkable how often ecclesiastical men make this mistake. They judge a man to be religious or otherwise, solely by this test. You hear strict ministers speak of a layman as an "amiable man," but "not pious." They do not know that amiableness is one form of natural piety, and that the more piety a man gets, the more amiable he becomes. The piety which they know has no connection with honesty, none with friendship, none with philanthropy; its only relations are with the ritual and creed. When the late John Quincy Adams died, his piety was one topic of commendation in most of the many sermons preached in memory of the man. What was the proof or sign of that piety? Scarcely any one found it in his integrity, which had not failed for many a year; or his faithful attendance on his political duty; or his unflinching love of liberty, and the noble war the aged champion fought for the unalienable rights of man. No! They found the test in the fact that he was a member of a church; that he went to meeting, and was more decorous than most men while there; that he daily read the Bible, and repeated each night a simple and beautiful little prayer, which mothers teach their babes of grace. No "regular minister," I think, found the proof of his piety in his zeal for man's welfare, in the cleanness of his life, and hands which never took a bribe. One, I remember, found a sign of that piety in the fact, that he never covered his reverend head till fairly out of church!
You remember the Orthodox judgment on Dr Channing. Soon after his death, it was declared in a leading Trinitarian journal of America, that without doubt he had gone to the place of torment, to expiate the sin of denying the Deity of Christ. All the noble life of that great and good and loving man was not thought equal to the formal belief that the Jesus of the Gospels is the Jehovah of the Psalms.
After ecclesiastical men produce their piety, they do not aim to set it to do the natural work of mankind. Morality is not thought to be the proof of piety, nor even the sign of it. They dam up the stream of human nature till they have got a sufficient head of piety, and then, instead of setting it to turn the useful mill of life, or even drawing it off to water the world's dry grounds, they let the waters run over the dam, promoting nothing but sectarian froth and noise; or, if it be allowed to turn the wheels, it must not grind sound corn for human bread, but chiefly rattle the clapper of the theologic mill.
The most serious sects in America now and then have a revival. The aim is to produce pietism; but commonly you do not find the subjects of a revival more disposed to morality after that than before; it is but seldom they are better sons or more loving lovers, partners or parents more faithful than before. It is only the ritual and the creed which they love the better. Intelligent men of the serious sects will tell you, such revivals do more harm than good, because the feelings are excited unnaturally, and then not directed to their appropriate, useful work.
The most important actual business of the clergy is, first, to keep up the present amount of morality. All sects agree in that work, and do a service by the attempt. For there are always sluggish men, slumberers, who need to be awaked, loiterers, who must be called out to, and hurried forward. Next, it is to produce piety, try it by these tests, and put it into these forms. All sects likewise agree in that, and therein they do good, and a great good. But after the piety is produced, it is not wholly natural piety, nor do they aim to apply it to the natural work thereof. Such is the most important business of the pulpit,—almost its only business. Hence unpopular vices, vices below the average virtue of society, get abundantly preached at. And popular virtues, virtues up to the average of society, get abundantly praised. But popular vices go unwhipped, and unpopular virtues all unhonoured pass the pulpit by. The great Dagon of the popular idolatry stands there in the market-place, to receive the servile and corrupting homage of the crowd, dashing the little ones to ruin at his feet; the popular priest is busy with his Philistine pietism, and never tells the people that it is an idol, and not God, which they adore. It is not his function to do that. Hence a man of more than the average excellence, more than the average wisdom, justice, philanthropy, or faith in God, and resolutely bent on promoting piety and morality in all their forms, is thought out of place in a sectarian pulpit; and is just as much out of place there, as a Unitarian would be in a Trinitarian pulpit, or a Calvinist in a Unitarian,—as much so as a weaver of broadcloth would be in a mill for making ribbons or gauze.
Hence, too, it comes to pass, that it is not thought fit to attack popular errors in the pulpit, nor speak of widespread public sins; not even to expose the fault of your own denomination to itself. The sins of Unitarians may be aimed at only from Trinitarian pulpits. It is not lawful for a sect to be instructed by a friend. The sins of commerce must not be rebuked in a trading town. In time of war we must not plead for peace. The sins of politics the minister must never touch. Why not ? Be- cause they are "actual sins of the times," and his kingdom "is not of this world." Decorous ministers are ordained and appointed to apologize for respectable iniquity, and to eulogize every wicked, but popular, great man. So long as the public sepulchres may not be cleansed, there must be priestly Pharisees to wash their outside white. The Northern priest is paid to consecrate the tyranny of capital, as the Southern to consecrate the despotism of the master over his negro slave. Men say you must not touch the actual sins of the times in a pulpit,—it would hurt men's feelings ; and they must not be disquieted from their decorous, their solemn, their accustomed sleep. "You must preach the Gospel, young fanatic," quoth the world. And that means preaching the common doctrines so as to convict no man's conscience of any actual sin ; then press out a little pietism, and decant it off into the old leathern bottles of the Church.
The late Mr Polk affords a melancholy example of the effect of this mode of proceeding. On his death-bed, when a man ought to have nothing to do but to die, the poor man remembers that he has "not been baptized," wishes to know if there is any "hope" for him, receives the dispensation of water in the usual form, and is thought to die "a Christian!" What a sad sign of the state of religion amongst us! To him or to his advisers it did not seem to occur, that, if we live right, it is of small consequence how we die; that a life full of duties is the real baptism in the name of man and God, and the sign of the Holy Spirit. The churches never taught him so. But snivelling at the end is not a Christian and a manly- death.
The effect of getting up the feeling of piety, and stop- ping with that, is like the effect of reading novels and nothing else. Thereby the feelings of benevolence, of piety, of hope, of joy, are excited, but lead to no acts the character becomes enervated, the mind feeble, the conscience inert, the will impotent; the heart, long wont to weep at the novelist's unreal woes, at sorrows in silk and fine linen, is harder than Pharaoh's when a dirty Irish girl asks for a loaf in the name of God, or when a sable mother begs money wherewith to save her daughter from the seraglios of New Orleans. Self-denial for the sake of noble enterprise is quite impossible to such. All the great feelings naturally lead to commensurate deeds; to excite the feeling and leave undone the deed, is baneful in the extreme.
I do not say novels are not good reading and profitable ; they are, just so far as they stimulate the intellect, the conscience, the affections, the soul, to healthful action, and set the man to work; but just so far as they make you content with mere feeling, and constrain the feeling to be nothing but feeling, they are pernicious. Such reading is mental dissipation. To excite the devotional feelings, to produce a great love of God, and not allow that to become work, is likewise dissipation, all the more pernicious,—dissipation of the conscience, of the soul. I do not say it comes in the name of self-indulgence, as the other; it is often begun in the name of self-denial, and achieved at great cost of self-denial too.
Profligacy of the religious sentiment, voluptuousness with God, is the most dangerous of luxuries. Novel- reading, after the fashion hinted at, is highly dangerous. How many youths and maidens are seriously hurt thereby! But as far as I can judge, in all Christendom there are more that suffer from this spiritual dissoluteness. I speak less to censure than to warn. I hate to see a man uncharitable, dishonest, selfish, mean, and sly,—"for ever standing on his guard and watching" unto fraud. I am sorry to hear of a woman given up to self-indulgence, accomplished, but without the highest grace—womanly good works,—luxurious, indolent, "born to consume the corn,"—that is bad enough. But when I learn that this hard man is a class leader, and has "the gift of prayer," is a famous hand at a conference, the builder of churches, a great defender of ecclesiastical doctrines and devotional forms, that he cries out upon every heresy, banning men in the name of God; when I hear that this luxurious woman delights in mystic devotion and has a wantonness of prayer,—it makes me far more sad ; and there is then no hope! The kidnapper at his court is a loathly thing; but the same kidnapper at his "communion!"—great God! and has thy Church become so low! Let us turn off our eyes and look away.
Hence it comes to pass that much of all this ecclesiastic pains to produce piety is abortive; it ends in sickness and routine. Men who have the reputation of piety in a vulgar sense are the last men you would look to for any great good work. They will not oppose slavery and war and lust of land,—national sins that are popular; nor intemperance and excessive love of gold,—popular, personal, and social sins. They would not promote the public education of the people, and care not to raise woman to her natural equality with man. "It is no part of piety to do such things,-"say they; "we are not under the covenant of works, but of grace only. What care we for painful personal righteousness, which profiteth little, when only the imputed can save us, and that so swiftly!
Nay, they hinder all these great works. The bitterest opposition to the elevation of all men is made in the name of devotion; so is the defence of slavery and war, and the flat degradation of woman. Here is a church, which at a public meeting solemnly instructs its minister elect not to preach on politics, or on the subjects of reform. They want him to "preach piety," "nothing but piety," "evangelical piety;" not a week-day piety but a Sabbath piety, which is up and at church once in seven days,—keeps her pew of a Sunday, but her bed all the week,—ghastly, lean, dyspeptic, coughing, bowed together, and in nowise able to lift up herself.
Hence "piety" gets a bad reputation amongst philanthropists, as it serves to hinder the development of humanity. Even amongst men of business a reputation for "piety" would make a new-comer distrusted; the money- lender would look more carefully to his collateral security.
At Blenheim and at Windsor you will find clipped yew-trees, cut into the shape of hearts and diamonds, nay, of lions and eagles, looking like anything but trees. So in Boston, in all New England, every where in Christendom, you will find clipped men, their piety cut into various artificial forms, looking like anything but men. The saints of the popular theology, what are they good for? For belief and routine,—for all of religion save only real piety and morality.
Persons of this stamp continually disappoint us. You expect manly work, and cannot get it done. Did you ever see little children play "Money?" They clasp their hands together and strike them gently on their knee; the elastic air compressed by this motion sounds like the jingling of small silver coin. You open the hand: there is nothing in it,—not small money enough to buy a last year's walnut or a blueberry. It was only the jingle of the money,—all of money but the money's worth. So is this unnatural form of piety; it has the jingle of godliness, and seems just as good as real piety, until you come to spend it; then it is good for nothing,—it will not pass anywhere amongst active men. A handful of it comes to nothing. Alas me! the children play at "Money," and call it sport; men grown play with a similar delusion, and call it the worship of God.
Now there is much of this false piety in the world, produced by this false notion, that there are only these two tests of piety. It leads to a great deal of mischief. Men are deceived who look to you for work ; you yourself are deceived in hoping for peace, beauty, comfort, and gladness, from such a deception.
"So, floating down a languid stream,
The lily-leaves oft lilies seem,
Eeflecting back the whitened beam
Of morning's slanting sun;—
But as I near and nearer came,
I missed the lily's fragrant flame,—
The gay deceit was done.
No snow-white lily blossomed fair,
There came no perfume on the air;
Only an idle leaf lay there,
And wantoned in the sun."
Under these circumstances piety dies away till there is nothing left but the name and the form. There is the ritual, the belief, such as it is, but nothing else. It is the symbol of narrowness and bigotry, often of self-conceit, sometimes of envy and malice and all uncharitableness. It leads to no outward work, it produces no inward satisfaction, no harmony with yourself, no concord with your brother, no unity with God. It leads to no real and natural tranquillity, no income of the Holy Spirit, no access of new being, no rest in God. There is the form of godliness, and nothing of its power. Some earnest-minded men see this, and are disgusted with all that bears the name of religion. Do you wonder at this? Remove the cause, as well as blame the consequence.
If pains be taken to cultivate piety, and, as it grows up, if it be left to its own natural development, it will have its own form of manifestation. The feeling of love to God, the Infinite Object, will not continue a mere feeling. Directed to the Infinite Object, it will be directed also towards men, and become a deed. As you love God the more, you must also love men the more, and so must serve them better. Your prayer will not content you, though beautiful as David's loftiest Psalm; you must put it into a practice more lovely yet. Then your prayer will help you, your piety be a real motive, a perpetual blessing. It will increase continually, rising as prayer to come down again as practice,—will first raise "a mortal to the skies," then draw that angel down. So the water which rises in electric ecstasy to heaven, and gleams in the rising or descending sun, comes down as simple dew and rain, to quiet the dust in the common road, to cool the pavement of the heated town, to wash away the unhealthiness of city lanes, and nurse the common grass which feeds the horses and the kine.
At the beginning of your growth in piety, there is, doubtless, need of forms, of special time and place. There need not be another's form, or there may be, just as you like. The girl learning to write imitates carefully each mark on the copy, thinking of the rules for holding the pen. But as you grow, you think less of the form, of the substance more. So the pen becomes not a mere instru ment, but almost a limb; the letters are formed even without a thought. Without the form, you have the effect thereof.
If there be piety in the heart, and it be allowed to live and grow and attain its manly form, it will quicken every noble faculty in man. Morality will not be dry, and charity will not be cold; the reason will not. grovel with mere ideas, nor the understanding with calculations; the shaft of wit will lose its poison, merriment its levity, common life its tedium. Disappointment, sorrow, suffering, will not break the heart, which will find soothing and comfort in its saddest woe. The consciousness of error, that vexes oft the noble soul, will find some compensation for its grief. Kemorse, which wounds men so sadly and so sore, will leave us the sweetest honey, gleaned up from the flowers we trod upon when we should have gathered their richness, and happily will sting us out of our offence.
The common test of Christianity is not the natural sacrament; it is only this poor conventional thing. Look at this. The land is full of Bibles. I am glad of it. I am no worshipper of the Bible, yet I reverence its wisdom, I honour its beauty of holiness, and love exceedingly the tranquil trust in God which its great authors had. Some of the best things that I have ever learned from man this book has taught me. Think of the great souls in this Hebrew Old Testament ; of the two great men in the New,—Jesus, who made the great religious motion in the world's parliament, and Paul, who supported it! I am glad the Bible goes everywhere. But men take it for master, not for help; read it as a sacrament, not to get a wiser and a higher light. They worship its letter, and the better spirit of Moses, of Esaias, of the Holy Psalms, so old and yet so young, so everlasting in their beauteous faith in God,—the sublime spirit of one greater than the temple, and Lord of the Sabbath, who scorned to put the new wine of God into the old and rotten bags of men—that is not in Christendom. O, no! men do not ask for that. The yeasty soul would rend asunder tradition's leathern bags. Worship of Bibles never made men write Bibles; it hinders us from living them. Worship no things for that; not the created, but, Creator! let us worship Thee. Catholicism is worship of a church, instead of God; Protestantism is worship of a book. Both could not generate a Jesus or a Moses.
For proof of religion men appeal to our churches, built by the self-denial of hard-working men. They prove nothing,—nay, nothing at all. The polygamous Mormons far outdo the Christians in their zeal. The throng of men attending church is small proof of religion. Think of the vain things which lead men to this church or to that; of the vain thoughts which fill them there; of the vain words they hear, or which are only spoke, not even heard! What a small amount of real piety and real morality is needed to make up a popular "Christian!" Alas! we have set up an artificial sacrament; we comply with that, then call ourselves religious,—yea, Christians. We try ecclesiastic metal by its brassy look and brassy ring, then stamp it with the popular image of our idolatry, and it passes current in the shop, tribute fit for Caesar. The humble publican of the parable, not daring to lift up his eyes to heaven; the poor widow, with her two mites that made a farthing; the outcast Samaritan, with his way-side benevolence to him that fell among the thieves,—might shame forth from the Christian Church each Pharisee who drops his minted and his jingling piety, with brassy noise, into the public ?hest. Render unto Caesar the things that be Caesar's.
The real test of religion is its natural sacrament,—is life. To know whom you worship, let me see you in your shop, let me overhear you in your trade ; let me know how you rent your houses, how you get your money, how you keep it, or how it is spent. It is easy to pass the Sunday idle, idly lounging in the twilight of idle words, or basking in the sunshine of some strong man's most earnest speech. It is easy to repeat the words of David, or of Jesus, and to call it prayer. But the sacramental test of your religion is not your Sunday idly spent, not the words of David or of Jesus that you repeat; it is your week-day life, your works, and not your words. Tried by this natural test, the Americans are a heathen people, not religious; far, far from that. Compare us with the Chinese by the artificial standard of the missionary, we are immensely above them; by the natural sacrament of obedience to the law of God, how much is the Christian before the heathen man?
The national test of religion is the nation's justice,—justice to other states abroad, the strong, the weak, and justice to all sorts of men at home. The law-book is the nation's creed; the newspapers chant the actual liturgy and service of the day. What avails it that the priest calls us "Christian," while the newspapers and the Congress prove us infidel? The social sacrament of religion is justice to all about you in society,—is honesty in trade and work, is friendship and philanthropy; the religious strong must help the weak. The ecclesiastical sacrament of a church must be its effort to promote piety and goodness in its own members first, and then to spread it round the world. Care for the bodies and souls of men, that is the real sacrament and ordinance of religion for society, the Church and State.
For the individual man, for you and me, there are two great natural sacraments. One is inward and not directly seen, save by the eye of God and by your own,—the continual effort, the great life-long act of prayer to be a man, with a man's body and a man's spirit, doing a man's duties, having a man's rights, and thereby enjoying the welfare of a man. That is one,—the internal ordinance of religion. The other is like it,—the earnest attempt to embody this in outward life, to make the manly act of prayer a manly act of practice too. These are the only sacraments for the only worship of the only God. Let me undervalue no means of growth, no hope of glory; these are the ends of growth, the glory which men hope.
Is not all this true? You and I,—we all know it. There is but one religion, natural and revealed by nature, — by outward nature poorly and in hints, but by man's inward spirit copiously and at large. It is piety in your prayer; in your practice it is morality. But try the nations, society, the Church, persons, by this sacramental test, and what a spectacle we are ! For the religion of the State, study the ends and actions of the State; study the religion of the Church by the doctrines and the practice of the Church; the religion of society,—read it in the great cities of the land. "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done," prays the minister. Listen to the "Amen" of the courts and the market, responding all the week! The actual religion of mankind is always summed up in the most conspicuous men. Is that religion Christian? Spirit of the Crucified ! how we take thy honoured name in vain! Yet we did not mean to be led astray: the nations did not mean it; the cities meant it not; the churches prayed for better things; the chief men stumbled and fell. We have altogether mistaken the ordinance of religion, and must mend that.
The New England Indian insisted upon his poor, hungry sacrament; so did the barbarian German; so the Jew, the Catholic, the Protestant; and each sectarian has his Shibboleth of ritual and creed. How poor and puerile are all these things! How puerile and poor the idea of God asking such trifles of mortal man! We shall never mend matters till we take the real religious sacrament, scorning to be deluded longer by such idle shows.
Now it has come to such a pass, that men wish to limit all religion to their artificial sacraments. The natural ordinance of human piety must not be even commended in the church. You must not apply religion to politics; it makes men mad. There is no law of God above the written laws of men. You must not apply it to trade: business is business; religion is religion. Business has the week for his time, the world for his market-place; religion has her Sunday and her meeting-house; let each pursue his own affairs. So the minister must not expose the sins of trade nor the sins of politics. Then, too, public opinion must be equally free from the incursions of piety. "O Religion!" say men, "be busy with thy sacramental creeds, thy sacramental rites, thy crumb of bread, thy sip of wine, thy thimbleful of water sprinkled on a baby's face, but leave the state, the market and all men, to serve the Devil, and be lost." "Very well," says the priest, "I accept the condition. Come and take our blessed religion!"
I began by saying how beautiful is real piety; so let me end. I love to study this in the forms of the past, in the mystic forms of Thomas à Kempis and William Law, in Fenelon and Swedenborg, in John Tauler, in St Bernard and St Victor, in Taylor and Herbert. But there it appears not in its fairest form. I love to see piety at its work better than in its play or its repose; in philanthropists better than in monks and nuns, who gave their lives to contemplation and to wordy prayer, and their bodies to be burned. I love piety embodied in a Gothic or Roman cathedral, an artistic prayer in stone, but better in a nation well fed, well housed, well clad, instructed well, a natural prayer in man or woman. I love the water touched by electric fire, and stealing upwards to the sky, lovely in the light of the uprising or slowly sinking sun. I love it not the less descending down as dew and rain, to still the dust in all the country roads, to cool the pavement in the heated town, to wash the city's dirtiest lane, and in the fields giving grass to the cattle, and bread to men. What is so fair as sentiment, is lovelier as life.
All the triumphs of ancient piety are for you and me; the lofty sentiment, the high resolve, the vision filled with justice, beauty, truth, and love. The great, ascending prayer, the manly consciousness of God, his income to your soul as justice, beauty, truth, and faith, and love,—all these wait there for you,—happiness now and here; hereafter the certain blessedness which cannot pass away.
Piety is beautiful in all; to a great man it comes as age comes to the Parthenon or the Pyramids, making what was vast and high majestic, venerable, sublime, and to their beauty giving a solemn awe they never knew before. To men not great, to the commonest men, it also comes, bringing refinement and a loveliness of substance and of shape; so that in a vulgar ecclesiastical crowd they seem like sculptured gems of beryl and of emerald among the common pebbles of the sea.
Piety is beautiful in all relations of life. When your wooing, winsome soul shall wed the won to be your other and superior self, a conscious piety hallows and beautifies the matrimonial vow,—deepens and sanctifies connubial love. When a new soul is added to your household,—a new rose-bud to your bosom,—a bright, particular star dropped from the upper sphere and dazzling in your diadem,—your conscious love of God will give the heavenly visitant the truest, the most prophetic and most blessed baptismal welcome here. And when, out of the circle that twines you round with loving hearts beloved, some one is taken, born out of your family, not into it, a conscious piety will seem to send celestial baptism to the heaven- born soul. And when the mists of age gather about your eye, when the silver cord of life is loosed and the golden bowl at the fountain begins to break, with what a blessed triumph shall you close your mortal sense to this romantic moon and this majestic sun, to the stars of earth that bloom below, the starry flowers that burn above, to open your soul on glory which the eye has not seen, nor yet the heart of man been competent to dream!
"Thy sweetness hath oetrayed Thee, Lord!
Dear Spirit! it is Thou;
Deeper and deeper in my heart
I feel Thee nestling now!
"Dear Comforter! Eternal Love!
Yes, Thou wilt stay with me,
If manly thoughts and loving ways
Build but a nest for Thee!"