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SPEECHES, ADDRESSES,

AND

OCCASIONAL SERMONS,

BY

THEODORE PARKER,

MINISTER OF THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH IN BOSTON.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

BOSTON:
HORACE B. FULLER,
(SUCCESSOR TO WALKER, FULLER, AND COMPANY,)
245, WASHINGTON STREET.

1867.


Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by
THEODORE PARKER,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court
of the District of Massachusetts.




CONTENTS OF VOLUME II.


I.

A SERMON OF THE SPIRITUAL CONDITION OF BOSTON.--Preached
at the Melodeon, on Sunday, February 18, 1849

                                                               PAGE 1

II.

SOME THOUGHTS ON THE MOST CHRISTIAN USE OF THE
SUNDAY.--A Sermon preached at the Melodeon, on Sunday,
January 30, 1848                                                   56

III.

A SERMON OF IMMORTAL LIFE.--Preached at the Melodeon
on Sunday, September 20, 1846                                     105

IV.

THE PUBLIC EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE.--An Address
delivered before the Onondaga Teachers' Institute at Syracuse,
New York, October 4, 1849                                         139

V.

THE POLITICAL DESTINATION OF AMERICA, AND THE
SIGNS OF THE TIMES.--An Address delivered before
several literary Societies in 1848                                198

VI.

A DISCOURSE OCCASIONED BY THE DEATH OF JOHN
QUINCY ADAMS.--Delivered at the Melodeon, on Sunday,
March 5, 1848                                                     252

VII.

A SPEECH AT A MEETING OF THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY
SOCIETY, TO CELEBRATE THE ABOLITION OF
SLAVERY BY THE FRENCH REPUBLIC, April 6, 1848                     331

VIII.

A SPEECH AT FANEUIL HALL, BEFORE THE NEW ENGLAND
ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION, May 31, 1848                             344

IX.

SOME THOUGHTS ON THE FREE SOIL PARTY, AND THE
ELECTION OF GENERAL TAYLOR, December, 1848                        360




A SERMON OF THE SPIRITUAL CONDITION OF BOSTON.--PREACHED AT THE
MELODEON, ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1849.

MATTHEW VIII. 20.

    By their fruits ye shall know them.


Last Sunday I said something of the moral condition of Boston; to-day I
ask your attention to a Sermon of the Spiritual Condition of Boston. I
use the word spiritual in its narrower sense, and speak of the condition
of this town in respect to piety. A little while since, in a sermon of
piety, I tried to show that love of God lay at the foundation of all
manly excellence, and was the condition of all noble, manly development;
that love of truth, love of justice, love of love, were respectively the
condition of intellectual, moral, and affectional development, and that
they were also respectively the intellectual, moral, and affectional
forms of piety; that the love of God as the Infinite Father, the
totality of truth, justice, and love was the general condition of the
total development of man's spiritual powers. But I showed, that
sometimes this piety, intellectual, moral, affectional or total, did not
arrive at self-consciousness; the man only unconsciously loving the
Infinite in one or all these modes, and in such cases the man was a
loser by frustrating his piety, and allowing it to stop in the truncated
form of unconsciousness.

Now what is in you will appear out of you; if piety be there in any of
these forms, in either mode, it will come out; if not there, its fruits
cannot appear. You may reason forward or backward: if you know piety
exists, you may foretell its appearance; if you find fruits thereof, you
may reason back and be sure of its existence. Piety is love of God as
God, and as we only love what we are like, and in that degree, so it is
also a likeness to God. Now it is a general doctrine in Christendom