Show SUBJECT THE RELIGION OF THEODORE PARKER rev browna k what Is the religion of theodore parker today in relation to the teachings first of all then what Is tho re huion of theodore parser loday in relation to tho teachings of religion we told last sunday you remember that this is a world of law that as god Is to bo seen and known in and through the laws of the natural world aa those laws are disclosed in physics or chemistry or other J ances so gods laws are to bo found by us in the moral world now thant a moment what 13 the object of religious teaching if teaching la supposed to tell people merely about laws why eay anything about d god why should wo care anything at all about a god will you not agree with me thai tho only use a god can have for the mass of men is in the moral sphere himself a believer in a god told napoleon he need the hypothesis of god 1 his science intellectually that idea was not necessary to the pursuit ot silence ask any scientist today and lie will tell you exactly the same thing our books of science are not religious book the boy or girl who in school studies some text book of science does not leam about god the supreme need of god if such there te s not in the intellectual sphere god merely as an idea by which to account for ahe world ls not a Tell grous idea it Is as a source of moral action or moral satisfaction thai god can alone be of service to men and women if we need god at all it IB as tho object of bur supreme admiration the source and inspirer of noble conduct the ground and justification of our beang in the world lit nil i now suppose a man tells me that this 19 a proof ofa divine intelligence as the creator of the universe that some of these human creatures may come into the world may grow to manhood or womanhood may go on through 1 the years and as the of their own choice lose their own souls that as a varv common teaching even in liberal pulpits this Is the ng here is a babe just born yours or mine or any ones what Is that anbe and what Is to be its destiny these religious teacher say that this babe which today docs not know its right hand from its hefti which did not ask lo 10 come into the world and had no part in tho making of that world into has come will later on possess the awful power of determining its own destiny that it will become a free moral agent that it may commit sins against and against itself which it shall lose ltv to be concrete this boy or yours may a aft grows up become wholly absorb ed in moneymaking money making that may become the passion of his life he will not be satis fled with a iundy ed thousand dollars nor a million nori any number of mil llona he will make that pursuit his sole interest he will not bo particular about how he his money he will accept the common code of commercialism As a result he will lose his capacity for higher things his perception otA onor ahls sensitive nesa to sympathy and finally his own soul he will be punished as mr van ness jsaie not for his sins but kiy his sins now hero Is a very common form of teaching which goes on under the supposed name of religion if it Is intended to bo called religious teaching it must he supposed that it presents to men a god whom they will want to worship and can worship my friends I 1 think you will agree aith mo that if in eom p way all the clergy of this country could be induced tor a year to preach nothing from their pulpits except bald calvinism at the end of that year every sane man or woman who accepted the idea that this was the beet that could be saia tor religion would be an atheist that Is to say tho god of galvanism Is our devil but I 1 want to say that if I 1 believed this other teaching that each of these human creatures ipox anything like the fateful power assigned him or that it Is an exhibition of divine intelligence that men and women may and do suffer total moral and spiritual eclipse 1 would immediately announce myself an atheist unqualifiedly think a moment here Is a boy let ug suppose him a boy of good intelligence telli gence the kind of boy any of us would like to be father or mother of he has ability ambition now what happeny what ia he going to be and what will determine his future his destiny his character does he bring these or either of them with him in no sense take this child of yours as a boy and let him live and grow up in france whore ho hears no other language spoken and that language will be his native tongue he will be a frenchman let him grow up with an indian tribe and the indian dialect will bo his mother tongue and the indian life bis natural destiny ho will as really an indian aa any other member ot the tribe in everything except his anatomy hundred of children have 1 been taken from the slums of london and placed in better surroundings As of them turned out largo a proportion aa in the case and women good men children born in the of 0 any group best of homes i the science of today knows that heredity Is almost a negligible factor but suppose athla boy of yours grows r he L where will up here in america in get his moral and ethical ideas the sunday not at all in will get them in the home no he the form of society in which he lives avory man who stays in business he there primarily playa the game for his health noras a philanthropist he may later on pose as one may even think lie is one but if he attempts in his business to practice the principles of the sermon on the mount he will very quickly bo out of business and he will speedily it jesus lived today be on the town and attempted to act put his alleged arrested palestinian life ho would be to work on the as a vagrant and put stone pile there a business would ac firm on earth today which copt for employment a man no matter how good in other respects who avowed his determination to act under all circumstances on the principles taught by jesus in the sermon would not on the mount such a man bo accepted tor the simple reason that the ordinary sane business man wants to keep out of the poor house is going to accept iso your boy the moral cobb of the world as ho finds it the code dictated by the conditions of a strenuous commercial competition or ho is going to find himself a piece of useless lumber but he want to bo that it is as natural for him to desire the approval of society to be looked up to and honored by the community to exorcise power to receive honors as it Is to broadie bro aUie and he finds that there and only one to is one open sesame success or honor or power one thing by virtue of which more than by anything else ha may b e honored and praised and jy h world about him by all classes and conditions of mankind and that one thing s money he finds too that it make any difference how he gets money if only he gets enough of it it ho is so foolish as to he A grader in the mines of goldfield as some are he may fall in his purpose ho cannot get the money fast enough that way but ithe it he can a high grader ini the stock exchange of feci like a scora of doeu choso whoso names occur at once to your mind it he can bo a high grader in the matter of stealing a legislature and a seat m the senate like mr dark of montana or mr of colorado with perhaps a governor thrown in or a high grader in railroads like mr harriman and others there la hardly anything ih tho way of honor or power which he may ciol pressess how many of the people of salt lake city or utah would receive anto their homes and ti at with courtesy those men n goldfeld Gold neld who hava been guilty of scaling sj aling of the rich are they dug down in the ground in ground the title to which rests finally in force or fraud aa d how many of the people of this city and stati would decline an invitation to bo present at a banquet in honor of mr guggenheim or mr dark or mi harraman Harrl man how many people in ahls alty or would not go along way rather thanh offer ono of these gigantic elgh grad ers af finance and politics choso whoso ox ampler have already done infinitely more to corrupt and debase tho minds and souls of millions of young men than all the petty of a century this boy of yours finds that it make any difference how he gets his money it only ha gets enough ana that too ina society which Is extremely sensitive about the potty high grading of ignorant miners neither his father nor his mother will scrutinize his dollars or aae him or how he got them their hearts will swell with pride over his success and the more US gets and this faster i the happier they are but it is almost inevitable that in this very process boy and millions of other boys will lose that fine sense of honor that perception of moral values that broad sympathy that devotion to high ideals which most of us agree to bei the noblest of a life does any one me to be clovo that this kind of law this law of our commercial civilization Is an exhibition of a loving divine genco controlling tho universe does any one expect me to believe that any such presentation Is a real gospel it ho does he expects altogether too audi it I 1 were tho devil supposing such a being to exist and wanted to arrange bilings in such way as to en euro the propagation of a race of atheists I 1 dont believed belie veI could improve upon the present system I 1 dont be alevo I 1 could do anything better than employ the preachers of the world to defend our existing commercialism aa an exhibition of the activity ot a god besides if our existing social order Is an intelligence tho law which governs in our best bomea between tho members of these homes Is not an exhibition of such an intelligence li gence for nothing buld be more diametrically different if tho laws which obtain in a commercialized society are an of god tha laws which obtain in a socialized home are not if this world of ours is over to be hove in a god it will not be by virtue of any form of authority which can possibly be invoked authority now or ever makes an impression only upon ignorance every school house that is built every book that Is print ed every paper that is published is a proclamation of the doom of authority this world will cast aside all belief in a god at all eventually unless such belief an be shown to be a joyous emancipating inspiring fulfillment of our natures and the place and the only place where mankind in the coming days will look for a divine intelligence a divine power a divine brov idenie will ler manifestations of moral purpose and righteous ands which the social and political collectively shall bo made to serve the vision which commands our devotion today la incomparably greater than that which compelled the horold service of theodore parker the whole problem Is changed it ts no longer a personal pers onal problem it Is a problem for we have no excuse for not knowing that today there Is no moral or ethical salvation except for all 1 ho go of individualism in religion Is gone by and they who are parroting its watchwords are but echoing the dead voices of the past if this human world of ours has any meaning tor you and me any sacred task to consecrate our lives it Is in no sense whatever the task of getting men and women into some fu aturo heaven which no one has ever much less tho task of inducing them to accept any creed or any religious theory which has been con colv ed it Is the task of making a higher type of man and woman the jakot solas on and up to a higher ley elof mo raland spiritual being yf affording the fullest possible alon of every noble faculty of our natures it may bg tragic but it is true nevertheless that the pathway of humanity up through the ages is marked by the empty and shattered shells of discarded faiths with the growing light of larger tho ghosts af pf ignorance and superstition have vanished one by one it may well he that many or all of the religious theories we cherish today will go as the rest have gone but if the upward evolution of the race means that into our minds is to come that creative consciousness ness which before we have imagined to IQ in som intelligence external to us and we are to be glori fler with the sense that we ourselves are social creators that together WB can wield higher and ever higher forces for the happiness jand spiritual enrichment rich ment of all may it not be that tho gain will compensate for the seeming loss may it not be that this leay lies the pathway to the higher and bettor religion that Is to be |