Religion Books

CHAPTER I. SALAAM. The Western student is apt to be somewhat confused in his ideas regarding the Yogis and their philosophy and practice. Travelers to India have written great tales about the hordes of fakirs, mendicants and mountebanks who infest the great roads of India and the streets of its cities, and who impudently claim the title "Yogi." The Western student is scarcely to be blamed for... more...

CHAPTER I. HEAVEN MUST BE RUN FOR. SO RUN, THAT YE MAY OBTAIN.—1 Corinthians ix. 24. Heaven and happiness is that which every one desireth, insomuch that wicked Balaam could say, "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!" Yet for all this, there are but very few that do obtain that ever-to-be-desired glory, insomuch that many eminent professors drop short of a... more...

LECTURE I. OUR IDEA OF GOD. (At Geneva, 17th Nov. 1863.—At Lausanne, 11th Jan. 1864.) Gentlemen, Some five-and-twenty or thirty years ago, a German writer published a piece of verse which began in this way: "Our hearts are oppressed with the emotions of a pious sadness, at the thought of the ancient Jehovah who is preparing to die." The verses were a dirge upon the death of the living God;... more...

CHAPTER I. CHRIST'S WORDS. All who really love Christ love His words. They may not always fully understand their meaning, but they never reject any of them. The very fact that any word has been on the lips of Christ and received His sanction, gives it a sound of music to all who are truly disciples of the Nazarene. MOTHER'S WORDS. The words that your mother used frequently—are there any... more...

INTRODUCTORY. I was staying with a party of friends in a country house during my visit to England in 1884. On Sunday evening as we sat around the fire, they asked me to read and expound some portion of Scripture. Being tired after the services of the day, I told them to ask Henry Drummond, who was one of the party. After some urging he drew a small Testament from his hip pocket, opened it at the 13th... more...

I. HIS EXISTENCE. 1. TAKEN FOR GRANTED BY THE SCRIPTURE WRITERS: It does not seem to have occurred to any of the writers of either the Old or the New Testaments to attempt to prove or to argue for the existence of God. Everywhere and at all times it is a fact taken for granted. "A God capable of proof would be no God at all" (Jacobi). He is the self-existent One (Exod. 3:14) and the Source of... more...

How many of us inwardly feel a secret longing to find God; and this usually accompanied by the perception that we are confronted by an impenetrable barrier—we cannot find Him—we can neither go through this barrier nor climb over it! We have faith. We are able to admit that He exists, for we cannot help but perceive a Will dominating the laws of the Universe; but something deep within us that we... more...

CHAPTER I. SEX THE FOUNDATION OF THE GOD-IDEA. In the study of primitive religion, the analogy existing between the growth of the god-idea and the development of the human race, and especially of the two sex-principles, is everywhere clearly apparent. "Religion is to be found alone with its justification and explanation in the relations of the sexes. There and therein only."(3) 3) Hargrave... more...

This translation of the ancient Gnôstic work, called by Schmidt, the Untitled Apocalypse, is based chiefly on Amélineau's French version of the superior MS. of the Codex Brucianus, now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. In making the rendering I have studied the context carefully, and have not neglected the Greek words interspersed with the Coptic; also I have availed myself of Mr Mead's... more...

ONE AND INFINITE God is One, and Infinite. The true quality of the Infinite does not appear; for the human mind, however highly analytical and exalted, is itself finite, and the finiteness in it cannot be laid aside. It is not fitted, therefore, to see the Infinity of God, and thus God, as He is in Himself, but can see God from behind in shadow; as it is said of Moses, when he asked to see God, that he... more...