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The Progress of Religious Ideas, Through Successive Ages
The Progress of Religious Ideas Through Successive Ages Author:Lydia Maria Child General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1855 Original Publisher: C.S. Francis Subjects: Religions Religion / Comparative Religion Social Science / Women's Studies Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the Genera... more »l Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CONCLUDING CHAPTER. "The word unto the Prophet spoken Was writ on tablets yet unbroken; The word by Seers or Sibyls told, In groves of oak, or fanes of gold, Still floats upon the morning wind, Still whispers to the willing mind. The heedless world hath never lost One accent of the Holy Ghost." R. W. Emersoic. I x reviewing the contents of the preceding pages, every reflecting mind must be struck with the fact that " there have been but few voices in the world, and many echoes." How the same questionings, the same hopes, the same aspirations, have continually reappeared, in expressions varied by the climates and the ages! The same gamut, with infinite modifications of mode and time! In all ages and countries, the great souls of humanity have stood on the mountain peaks, alternately watching the clouds below, and the moonlight above, anxiously calling to each other: "Brethren, what of the night?" And to each and all an answer has returned, varying in distinctness: "Lo, the morning cometh." If we would but look at the subject comprehensively, there is nothing in the history of man so interesting as the attempt to trace Infinite Wisdom making its way among the errors, the frailties, the passions, and the intense spiritual longings of finite souls. Everywhere the Divine Spirit takes form according to the capacity of reception. As this enlarges, old forms of thought and worship die, and the Spirit enters into new ones, which the previous growth has prepared. Thus is the ...« less