Complete Project Gutenberg Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. WorksHolmes, Oliver Wendell
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Complete Project Gutenberg Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Works
Holmes, Oliver Wendell
American literature; Literature -- Collections
The Professor at the Breakfast-Table came out in the "Atlantic Monthly"
and introduced itself without any formal Preface. A quarter of a century
later the Preface of 1882, which the reader has just had laid before him,
was written. There is no mark of worry, I think, in that. Old opponents
had come up and shaken hands with the author they had attacked or
denounced. Newspapers which had warned their subscribers against him
were glad to get him as a contributor to their columns. A great change
had come over the community with reference to their beliefs. Christian
believers were united as never before in the feeling that, after all,
their common object was to elevate the moral and religious standard of
humanity. But within the special compartments of the great Christian
fold the marks of division have pronounced themselves in the most
unmistakable manner. As an example we may take the lines of cleavage
which have shown themselves in the two great churches, the Congregational
and the Presbyterian, and the very distinct fissure which is manifest in
the transplanted Anglican church of this country. Recent circumstances
have brought out the fact of the great change in the dogmatic communities
which has been going on silently but surely. The licensing of a
missionary, the transfer of a Professor from one department to another,
the election of a Bishop,--each of these movements furnishes evidence
that there is no such thing as an air-tight reservoir of doctrinal
finalities.
The folding-doors are wide open to every Protestant to enter all the
privileged precincts and private apartments of the various exclusive
religious organizations. We may demand the credentials of every creed
and catechise all the catechisms. So we may discuss the gravest
questions unblamed over our morning coffee-cups or our evening tea-cups.
There is no rest for the Protestant until he gives up his legendary
anthropology and all its dogmatic dependencies.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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