The Collected Works of Theodore Parker/Volume 05/Preface
PREFACE.
There can hardly fail at the present time to attach a mournful interest to these Discourses on Slavery by Theodore Parker. Few will read them and see how deeply their author's heart was engaged in the cause of Negro Emancipation, without being touched by the thought that in the great struggle now passing in America, the voice which would have spoken loudest for right and justice has been silent, and the brave soul which would have exulted in the triumph of freedom has passed away from earth beyond the tidings of the conflict, perhaps beyond the echoes of that last glad Te Deum which shall arise from an enfranchised race and a regenerated land.
Another and a brighter interest will doubtless cling to these Discourses in times to come, when slavery shall have been swept from the world, and men look back to its stupendous wrong with the same wondering horror wherewith we now regard the tyrannies of feudalism and the cruelties of the Inquisition. It will then be remembered with joy that the first preacher of pure Theism was also the fearless denouncer of the great National Crime of his age—that crime which the Churches of his land were rarely found to condemn, and often to justify and defend.
Switzerland, August, 1863