Christianity as an Ideal (Paperback)

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. 1900. Excerpt: ... VII THE RETURN OF THE IDEAL VII. f3je fteturn of tfje Itoeal. The original ideal of Christianity lay in the actual historical life of Jesus. That contained a reconciliation of the universe for man, and a solution of the contradictions implied in the meeting of the outer and inner worlds, not by abstraction or elimination of the oppositions, but by the free action of a spirit which recognised the 'necessity' in actual worldly conditions as a means to its own perfection. This acceptance by Christ of the world's life as a necessary means of the spirit's growth, as the only sphere for fulfilling the religious nature of man, and the only possible road to the perfect knowledge of God: this was the vindication by Christ of his faith in the ultimate unity of the infinite and finite, the world of thought and the world of fact; his faith in both as the manifestation of one principle; his faith in both as essential elements in the final spiritual kingdom. In the strength of this faith he humbled himself under all the conditions of life, with pain and sorrow even unto death; and in the strength of this faith these conditions, which are to us the typical features of the opposition of the outer world, became for him the avenues and channels of grace, the seeds of a spiritual life that the Lord was planting and not man. But this reconciliation took place in the simplicity of faith only, in the sphere of religion and the moral life. It was indeed the universal ideal, but clothed in the form of an individual life, and presented to us in the region of simple trust in the universality of a divine purpose, that all things worked together for good. And the teaching of this ideal life was as simple as its faith: 'Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.' It is...