Saturday Evening (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: II. THE EXPECTATION OF CHRISTIANS. " And the Sabbath drew on." Shall we then look for a moment to the present religious condition of mankind ') If it were lawful so far to extend an apostolic axiom as to apply it (beyond it proper scope) to the actual state of polytheistic, mahometan, and popish superstitions, in all quarters of the world, the brightest hopes which Christians of late have indulged, would be at once authenticated. ? " That," says the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews, " that which has become antiquated and decrepit with age, is nigh to its final disappearance." Nothing more remarkably distinguishes the religious state of mankind in our own times, as compared with any other eras, concerning which history enables us at all to form an opinion, than the air of Dotage which belongs, without exception, to every one of the leading surpersti- tions of the nations. There have been times when, if some were on their wane, others were in full vigour, or just starting forth from their cradle with a giant strength. If we track the course of time during the lapse of four-and- twenty centuries, we shall find this to have been the case in each period. In each there was, in some quarter within the circle of historic light, or its penumbra, one or more forms of religious error which very firmly grasped the minds of the nations that were its Tictims. Although our knowledge of the human race is now incomparably more extensive, and accurate, than erer has been heretofore possessed, we can descry, in no direction, a young and hale and mantling religious delusion, such as threatens to become invasive; or which attracts the eyes of mankind by the signal proofs it is giving of its sway of the imagination and the turbulent passions of our nature. The contrary is the fac...