The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 01Brann, William Cowper
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The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 01
Brann, William Cowper
Brann, William Cowper, 1855-1898; Essays; Reformers
We may safely trust our future to the same great Power to
whom we owe the present. It is of far more importance that
we make the most possible of this life than that we have
fixed convictions anent the next. It is safe to assume that
had the great God intended we should know for a surety
what awaits us beyond Death's dark river, He would have
made it so manifest that diversity of opinion would be
impossible; that had he intended we should each and all
accept Christ as a divinity, He would have driven stronger
pegs upon which the doubting Thomases of this late day
could hang their faith; that had He intended the Bible
should stand for all time as His infallible word, it would not
have been intrusted for so many centuries to the care
of fallible men; that had He intended we should each and
all believe the miracles, He would have made better
provision for their authentication--or built our heads on a
different plan. Belief in immortality is a very comforting
doctrine--for such as hope to dodge hell-pains--and is so
general, so prone to manifest itself, where the mind of man
has not been persistently trained in an opposite direction,
that we may almost call it a religious instinct, which is but a
vulgarism for a divine and direct revelation of God;
therefore, it should not be discouraged in our new world-
church, but given every opportunity for expansion. No one
should be excluded, however, if he fail to find evidence,
within or without, to sustain the theory.
Such a church would embrace all others as the ocean-
stream of the ancients encompassed and fed every sea. It
would be the tie that would bind all in unity. It should
welcome to its pulpit all ministers of whatsoever
denomination who desire to treat the worship of God from a
nonsectarian standpoint or read a homily calculated to
strengthen the morals of mankind. Its hymns should be
songs of praise to that God who made us the greatest in
His visible creation; its prayers should be thanks for past
mercies and petitions that He will make our brightest
dreams of life eternal beyond the skies a blessed reality--
that having brought us so near His bright effulgence in-
create for Time, He will gather us to His loving bosom for
all Eternity.
Such is the church in which I hope one day to see the
whole world gathered--a church whose paeans of praise
to the great God would drown dogmatic dialecties as the
swelling notes of an organ drown the fretful complaining of
a child.
AN UNPROFITABLE CONTROVERSY.
Mr. Gladstone and Prof. Huxley have been warmly
debating the story of the swine, the devil and the deep sea.
What an occupation for two of the master spirits of the age!
Is it any wonder that young men, contemplating such
polemics, should turn away from revealed religion
altogether?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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