The Destiny of the Soul: A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future LifeAlger, William Rounseville
Religion
The Destiny of the Soul: A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life
Alger, William Rounseville
Future life -- Christianity -- Bibliography; Future life -- Christianity -- History of doctrines
mean or false spirit, but be catholic and kindly, if it be not
superficial and pretentious, but be marked by patience and
thoroughness, is it too much to hope that no critic will assail it
with wholesale condemnation simply because in some parts of it
there are opinions which he dislikes? One dispassionate argument
is more valuable than a shower of missile names. The most vehement
revulsion from a doctrine is not inconsistent, in a Christian
mind, with the sweetest kindness of feeling towards the persons
who hold that doctrine. Earnest theological debate may be carried
on without the slightest touch of ungenerous personality. Who but
must feel the pathos and admire the charity of these eloquent
words of Henry Giles?
"Every deep and reflective nature looking intently 'before and
after,' looking above, around, beneath, and finding silence and
mystery to all his questionings of the Infinite, cannot but
conceive of existence as a boundless problem, perhaps an
inevitable darkness between the limitations of man and the
incomprehensibility of God. A nature that so reflects, that
carries into this sublime and boundless obscurity 'the large
discourse of Reason,' will not narrow its concern in the solution
of the problem to its own petty safety, but will brood over it
with an anxiety which throbs for the whole of humanity. Such a
nature must needs be serious; but never will it be arrogant: it
will regard all men with an embracing pity. Strange it should ever
be otherwise in respect to inquiries which belong to infinite
relations, that mean enmities, bitter hatreds, should come into
play in these fathomless searchings of the soul! Bring what
solution we may to this problem of measureless alternatives,
whether by Reason, Scripture, or the Church, faith will never
stand for fact, nor the firmest confidence for actual
consciousness. The man of great and thoughtful nature, therefore,
who grapples in real earnest with this problem, however satisfied
he may be with his own solution of it, however implicit may be his
trust, however assured his convictions, will yet often bow down
before the awful veil that shrouds the endless future, put his
finger on his lips, and weep in silence."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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