This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1915 Excerpt: ...Kingdom--after the disappearance of the earth or before--we have no interest in deciding, even if decision were possible, for Christian hope is set not upon a future condition of the world, but on God. Again, eschatology is assailed on moral grounds. "Otherworldliness," it is said, has commonly induced a contemptible ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1915 Excerpt: ...Kingdom--after the disappearance of the earth or before--we have no interest in deciding, even if decision were possible, for Christian hope is set not upon a future condition of the world, but on God. Again, eschatology is assailed on moral grounds. "Otherworldliness," it is said, has commonly induced a contemptible neglect of life in the present--its ennobling activities, its pathetic needs. To live with a future life in view is to undervalue civilised existence. "This world," said Goethe, "is more than a waiting-room for the next life." We are called to possess the world and our own personality, to wrest her secrets from nature, to give free play to intellect and imagination, to create a society organised in wisdom and liberty. This task cannot be achieved by men whose attention and energy are distracted by thoughts of a coming world. No one will deny that too often a selfish1 and fanatical "otherworldliness" has disfigured the religious life. But any single interest may unduly absorb the mind. The man of science may be so completely engrossed in research as to neglect his family; the lover of sport may sacrifice duty to pleasure; have then sport and science no place in the good life? Such eccentricities may be put aside. The really important thing is that profoundly eschatological religion has so frequently supplied moral power and zest to great social reformers. It was Christians of this type who persuaded Great Britain to stamp out slavery. Faith of the same kind led to the amelioration of prisons and the erection of hospitals. The consciousness of being in communion with God such that even death could not sever it had much to do with the manhood, trust and courage by which these men were inspired. If the human ...
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