Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons, Volume 3 (of 3)Parker, Theodore
Religion
Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons, Volume 3 (of 3)
Parker, Theodore
Sermons, American; Unitarianism
Such is the Scholars' position in America: such their duty, and such the
way in which they pay the debt they owe. Will men of superior culture
not all act by scholar-craft and by the Pen? It were a pity if they
did. If a man work nobly, the Office is as worthy, and the Purse as
blessed in its work. The Pen is power; the Office is power; the Purse is
power; and if the purse and office be nobly held, then in a high mode
the cultivated man pays for his bringing up, and honors with wide
sympathies the mass of men who give him chance to ride and rule. If not;
if these be meanly held, for self and not for man, then the scholar is a
debtor and a traitor too.
The scholar never had so fair a chance before; here is the noblest
opportunity for one that wields the Pen; it is mightier than the Sword,
the Office, or the Purse. All things concede at last to Beauty, Justice,
Truth and Love, and these he is to represent. He has what freedom he
will pay for and take. Let him talk never so heroic, he will find fit
audience, nor will it long be few. Men will rise up and welcome his
quickening words as vernal grass at the first rains of spring. A great
nation which cannot live by bread alone, asks for the bread of life;
while the State is young, a single great and noble man can deeply
influence the nation's mind. There are great wrongs which demand
redress; the present men who represent the Office and the Purse will not
end these wrongs. They linger for the Pen, with magic touch to abolish
and destroy this ancient serpent-brood. Shall it be only rude men and
unlettered who confront the dragons of our time which prowl about the
folds by day and night, while the scholar, the appointed guardian of
mankind, but "sports with Amaryllis in the shade, or with the tangles of
Neæra's hair?" The nation asks of her scholar better things than ancient
letters ever brought; asks his wonders for the million, not the few
alone. Great sentiments burn now in half-unconscious hearts, and great
ideas kindle their glories round the heads of men. Unconscious
electricity, Truth and Right, flashes out of the earth, out of the air.
It is for the scholar to attract this ground-lightning and this
lightning of the sky, condense it into useful thunder to destroy the
wrong, then spread it forth a beauteous and a cheering light, shedding
sweet influence and kindling life anew. A few great men of other times
tell us what may be now.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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