An Introduction to the Study of Comparative ReligionJevons, F. B. (Frank Byron)
Religion
An Introduction to the Study of Comparative Religion
Jevons, F. B. (Frank Byron)
Religion
of his fellow-man, and of his communion with him. Nay! more, by the
testimony of Buddhism itself as well as of the religious experience of
mankind at large, the unselfish desires, the spirit of self-sacrifice,
require both for their logical and their emotional justification, still
more for their practical operation, the faith that by means of them the
will of God is carried out, and that in them man shows likest God. It
is in them and by them that the communion of man with his fellow-man
and with his God is realised. It is the faith that such communion,
though it may be interrupted, can never be entirely broken which
manifests itself in the belief in immortality. That belief may take
shape in the idea that the souls of the departed revisit this earth
temporarily in ghostly form, or more permanently as reincarnated in the
new-born members of the tribe; it may body forth another world of bliss
or woe, and if it is to subserve the purposes of morality, it must so
do; nay! more, if it is to subserve the purposes of morality, it is
into the presence of the Lord that the soul must go. But in any and
whatever shape the belief takes, the soul is conceived or implied to be
in communion with other spirits. There is no other way in which it is
{69} possible to conceive the existence of a soul; just as any particle
of matter, to be comprehended in its full reality, implies not only
every other particle of matter but the universe which comprehends them,
so the existence of any spirit logically implies not only the existence
of every other but also of Him without whom no one of them could be.
It is in this belief in the communion of spirits wherever he may find
it--and where will he not?--that the missionary may obtain a leverage
for his work. It is a sure basis for his operations because the desire
for communion is universal; and Christianity alone, of the religions of
the world, teaches that self-sacrifice is the way to life eternal.
{70}
MAGIC
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An Introduction to the Study of Comparative Religion — John Shaqi
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