Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

HARY si.AY-AWHEN CHRIST APPEARED.39circumstances, but it never so appeared to thosewho lived under it. The wonderful error whichso enfolded these widespread nations never exhibiteditself to them bare and naked.On the contrary,it came to them interwoven with the dearestclaims of the family, the city, the country, withthe force of habit and tradition, with the dreadof change, with the past history and future hopesof their fatherland, coloured moreover with theradiant dress of a rich and ever-advancing civilisation.To judge of its power, vitality, and chance ofpermanence, we must look at it under these conditions.And if, when we regard this idolatrouspolytheism in itself, one is lost in wonder at itsever having arisen, at its existence, at its continuance,so, when one regards it as throned in thecustoms, feelings, convictions, and interests of society,one wonders how any moral force could everoverthrow it. At the present time not only arethere religions outside of Christianity, but thereare also sects within it, so irrational, so devoidof the witness given by internal truth ammony, so unable to render any account of themselvesand their claims which will satisfy a mindlooking for consistency, that, regarding themmerely as facts, one cannot account for them, yetnotwithstanding they may have existed for severalhundred years, and had a large share in formingnational habits of thought, ts / or even national cha-