The Book of Religions: Comprising the Views, Creeds, Sentiments, or Opinions, of All the Principal Religious Sects in the World, Particularly of All Christian Denominations in Europe and America, to Which are Added Church and Missionary Statistics, Together With Biographical SketchesHayward, John
Religion
The Book of Religions: Comprising the Views, Creeds, Sentiments, or Opinions, of All the Principal Religious Sects in the World, Particularly of All Christian Denominations in Europe and America, to Which are Added Church and Missionary Statistics, Together With Biographical Sketches
Hayward, John
Christian biography; Religions; Sects
The extreme aversion of the Jews to every thing which bears the Christian
name, and their obstinate attachment to their ancient religion, have, in
former years, discouraged all attempts to convert them to the Christian
faith. And not only has their conversion been neglected, but for many
centuries they have been persecuted, plundered, and destroyed, by those
who have called themselves Christians; they have not been permitted to
enter their churches as worshippers, nor their dwellings as guests, nor
reside in their territories, where Pagans and Mahometans have found an
unmolested abode. While we, then, blame the blindness and incredulity of
the descendants of Abraham, let us lament the folly and unkindness of the
professed disciples of the mild and compassionate Redeemer. But a
different spirit is now prevailing in many parts of Christendom, and a new
era, as to the tribes of Israel, seems about to burst upon the world.
Societies are formed in Europe and America for their benefit, and a
disposition is said to be increasing, among the Jews, favorable to that
Messiah and that religion which they have so long hated and rejected.
The history of this people certainly forms a striking evidence of the
truth of divine revelation. They are a living and perpetual miracle,
continuing to subsist as a distinct and peculiar race for upwards of three
thousand years, intermixed among almost all the nations of the world,
flowing forward in a full and continued stream, like the waters of the
Rhone, without mixing with the waves of the expansive lake through which
the passage lies to the ocean of eternity.
INDIAN RELIGIONS.
“Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutored mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His soul proud science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk, or milky way;
Yet simple nature to his hope has given,
Behind the cloud-topped hill, an humbler heaven—
Some safer world in depth of woods embraced,
Some happier island in the watery waste,
Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.
To be, contents his natural desire;
He asks no angel’s wing, no seraph’s fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog will bear him company.”—POPE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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