1. The Religious Emotions Purely Human 281 2. God is Feeling Released from Limits 283 3. God is the Highest Feeling of Self 284 4. Distinction between the Pantheistic and Personal God 285 5. Nature without Interest for Christians 287 6. In God Man is his Own Object 289 7. Christianity the Religion of Suffering 292 8. Mystery of the Trinity 293 9. Creation out of Nothing 297 10. Egoism of the Israelitish Religion 298 11. The Idea of Providence 299 12. Contradiction of Faith and Reason 304 13. The Resurrection of Christ 306 14. The Christian a Supermundane Being 307 15. The Celibate and Monachism 308 16. The Christian Heaven 315 17. What Faith Denies on Earth it Affirms in Heaven 316 18. Contradictions in the Sacraments 317 19. Contradiction of Faith and Love 320 20. Results of the Principle of Faith 326 21. Contradiction of the God-Man 332 22. Anthropology the Mystery of Theology 336 THE ESSENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. § 1. The Essential Nature of Man. Religion has its basis in the essential difference between man and the brute--the brutes have no religion. It is true that the old uncritical writers on natural history attributed to the elephant, among other laudable qualities, the virtue of religiousness; but the religion of elephants belongs to the realm of fable. Cuvier, one of the greatest authorities on the animal kingdom, assigns, on the strength of his personal observations, no higher grade of intelligence to the elephant than to the dog.