The Theistic Conception of the World: An Essay in Opposition to Certain Tendencies of Modern ThoughtCocker, B. F. (Benjamin Franklin)
Religion
The Theistic Conception of the World: An Essay in Opposition to Certain Tendencies of Modern Thought
Cocker, B. F. (Benjamin Franklin)
Theism
All the rich treasures of the past are appropriated by Christianity--the
moral culture of the Hebrew, the poetry and philosophy of Greece, the
jurisprudence of Ancient Rome. All these--in so far as they are pure and
good--are absorbed by Christianity, and ennobled and baptized by the
Christian spirit. In Christian Europe poetry, philosophy, science
flourished as they had never flourished in any preceding age, and they
lay their richest tribute at the feet of Christ, the Divine King of the
world. Nature, also, herself becomes more and more subject to man, and
to the religion of the God-man. Science multiplies the means of
diffusing knowledge and the facilities of intercourse among the nations
of the earth. The discovery of the art of printing opens the Book of
Life to the millions of our race. Space has been annihilated by
railroads; by the help of steam continents are united; the electric
telegraph is binding the nations in one. And now the genius of
Christianity begins more signally to reveal itself as a power acting on
the social life of man. The forms and conditions of his earthly lot are
being wonderfully transformed and improved. Science is emancipating
labor, and constantly overcoming the sources of human suffering.
Hygienic science is preserving life and extending the term of human
existence. Mankind is rising above the sphere of mere law, into the
sphere of noble love. Philanthropic institutions are being daily
multiplied, humanitarian and Christian enterprises most vigorously
prosecuted, and a noble benevolence is rapidly supplanting the ignoble
selfishness of former ages. Chalmers, Howard, Wilberforce, Hitchcock,
Amos Lawrence, Elizabeth Fry, Florence Nightingale, Mrs. Gladstone, are
representative men and women of the new age.
Christian civilization is no longer the property of any one nation
alone. Now it embraces in its purposes and plans the evangelization of
all the nations of the earth. The world is now its field. The
accumulated waves of light and power from Hebrew and Grecian and Roman
civilizations, to which Christianity has added a new life and force, are
destined to roll back a tide of blessing upon the remnants of those
ancient nations, and sweep northward and southward--
"Till like a sea of glory,
It spreads from pole to pole."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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