Broad Lines; Or, the True Theosophy (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. 1890. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER IV. RELIGIOUS NIHILISM. 'if one must go down into the arena of human opinion, I feel myself more driven to oppose him who denies my God than to fight with him who worships Him. That is the holy cause to fight for. 'Scepticism is spreading in the world. It has clubs, journals, and systems of propagandism. It behoves all who have not abandoned faith, those who yet believe in God, in the soul, in duty, in sanctity, in immortality, to come nearer together, to unite and to reply to the infidelity now spreading over the earth, the words--Eternal life. 'M. Ernest Naville We have alluded to the pyramid, its peculiar form, its special significance in the East, and some of the legends connected with it. A pyramid has four inferior cornerstones and one headstone, or chief cornerstone. These we have severally compared to the great phases of religious belief, which have prevailed at different periods of the world's history. i. Materialism. 2. Metalism. 5. Headstone. 3. Both in conjunction, 4. Both in opposition, i.e., Dualism. i.e., Nihilism. 1. The first of these appears to be the earliest historically. We hear of it at the time of the Flood, when 'men loved pleasure rather than knowledge, and set up the worship of things of sense in the place of Allah. Then came the flood, for with water, the great purifier, did Allah wash out the unclean.' Unhappily their error did not perish with them, but prevails among many even in our own day. 2. After the re-peopling of the earth by Noah, there appears to have been a long period of great prosperity and rapid progress in civilisation, art, and science. Then it was that 'men loved knowledge rather than pleasure, and set up the worship of things mental in the place of Allah, ' etc. The over nil. Or we may remember the fam...