Painted Windows: Studies in Religious Personality

Painted Windows: Studies in Religious Personality

By means of a study in religious personality, I seek in these pages to discover a reason for the present rather ignoble situation of the Church in the affections of men. My purpose is to examine the mind of modern Christianity, the only religion of the world with which the world can never be done, because it has the lasting quality of growth, and to see whether in the condition of that mind one cannot light upon a cause for the confessed failure of the Church to impress humanity with what its documents call the Will of Goda failure the more perplexing because of the wonderful devotion, sincerity, and almost boundless activity of the modern Church. As a clue to the object of this quest, I would ask the reader to bear in mind that the present disordered state of the world is by no means a consequence of the late War. The state of the world is one of confusion, but that confusion is immemorial. Man has for ever been wrestling with an anarchy which has for ever defeated him. The history of the human race is the diary of a Bear Garden. Man, so potent against the mightiest and most august forces of nature, has never been able to subdue those trivial and unworthy forces within his own breastenvy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitablenesswhich make for world anarchy. He has never been able to love God because he has never been able to love his neighbour. It is in the foremost nations of the world, not in the most backward, in the most Christian nations, not the most pagan, that we find unintelligent conditions of industrialism which lead to social disorder, and a vulgar disposition to self-assertion which makes for war. History and Homicide, it has been said, are indistinguishable terms. "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 14996
Author: Begbie, Harold
Release Date: Feb 9, 2005
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Illustrator: Verpilleux, Emile, 1888-1964