Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons, Volume 1 (of 3)Parker, Theodore
Religion
Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons, Volume 1 (of 3)
Parker, Theodore
Sermons, American; Unitarianism
Is that all? Oh, no! Did not Jesus say, resist not evil--with evil? Is
not war the worst form of that evil; and is there on earth a nation so
greedy of war; a nation more reckless of provoking it; one where the
war-horse so soon conducts his foolish rider into fame and power? The
"Heathen" Chinese might send their missionaries to America, and teach us
to love men! Is that all? Far from it. Did not Christ say, whatsoever
you would that men should do unto you, do you even so unto them; and are
there not three million brothers of yours and mine in bondage here, the
hopeless sufferers of a savage doom; debarred from the civilization of
our age, the barbarians of the nineteenth century; shut out from the
pretended religion of Christendom, the heathens of a Christian land;
chained down from the liberty unalienable in man, the slaves of a
Christian republic? Does not a cry of indignation ring out from every
legislature in the North; does not the press war with its million
throats, and a voice of indignation go up from East and West, out from
the hearts of freemen? Oh, no. There is none of that cry against the
mightiest sin of this age. The rock of Plymouth, sanctified by the feet
which led a nation's way to freedom's large estate, provokes no more
voice than the rottenest stone in all the mountains of the West. The few
that speak a manly word for truth and everlasting right, are called
fanatics; bid be still, lest they spoil the market! Great God! and has
it come to this, that men are silent over such a sin? 'Tis even so. Then
it must be that every church which dares assume the name of Christ, that
dearest name to men, thunders and lightens on this hideous wrong! That
is not so. The church is dumb, while the state is only silent; while the
servants of the people are only asleep, "God's ministers" are dead!
In the midst of all these wrongs and sins, the crimes of men, society
and the state, amid popular ignorance, pauperism, crime, and war, and
slavery too--is the church to say nothing, do nothing; nothing for the
good of such as feel the wrong, nothing to save them who do the wrong?
Men tell us so, in word and deed; that way alone is "safe!" If I thought
so, I would never enter the church but once again, and then to bow my
shoulders to their manliest work, to heave down its strong pillars, arch
and dome, and roof, and wall, steeple and tower, though like Samson I
buried myself under the ruins of that temple which profaned the worship
of God most high, of God most loved. I would do this in the name of man;
in the name of Christ I would do it; yes, in the dear and blessed name
of God.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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