Pagan and Christian Creeds: Their Origin and MeaningCarpenter, Edward
Religion
Pagan and Christian Creeds: Their Origin and Meaning
Carpenter, Edward
Christianity and other religions; Mythology; Paganism; Religion
To explain what I mean, let me use an illustration. The typhoons and
cyclones of the China Seas are some of the most formidable storms that
ships can encounter. Their paths in the past have been strewn with
wrecks and disaster. But now with increased knowledge much of their
danger has been averted. It is known that they are CIRCULAR in
character, and that though the wind on their outskirts often reaches a
speed of 100 miles an hour, in the centre of the storm there is a
space of complete calm--not a calm of the SEA certainly, but a complete
absence of wind. The skilled navigator, if he cannot escape the storm,
steers right into the heart of it, and rests there. Even in the midst
of the clatter he finds a place of quiet where he can trim his sails
and adjust his future course. He knows too from his position in what
direction at every point around him the wind is moving and where it will
strike him when at last his ship emerges from the charmed circle.
Is it not possible, we may ask, that in the very midst of the cyclone of
daily life we may find a similar resting-place? If we can, our case is
by no means hopeless. If we cannot, then indeed there is danger.
Looking back in History we seem to see that in old times people took
life much more leisurely than they do now. The elder generations gave
more scope in their customs and their religions for contentment and
peace of mind. We associate a certain quietism and passivity with the
thought of the Eastern peoples. But as civilization traveled Westward
external activity and the pace of life increased--less and less time was
left for meditation and repose--till with the rise of Western Europe and
America, the dominant note of life seems to have simply become one of
feverish and ceaseless activity--of activity merely for the sake of
activity, without any clear idea of its own purpose or object.
Such a prospect does not at first seem very hopeful; but on second
thoughts we see that we are not forced to draw any very pessimistic
conclusion from it. The direction of human evolution need not remain
always the same. The movement, in fact, of civilization from East to
West has now clearly completed itself. The globe has been circled, and
we cannot go any FARTHER to the West without coming round to the East
again. It is a commonplace to say that our psychology, our philosophy
and our religious sense are already taking on an Eastern color; nor is
it difficult to imagine that with the end of the present dispensation a
new era may perfectly naturally arrive in which the St. Vitus' dance of
money-making and ambition will cease to be the chief end of existence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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