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; and the author, like a well educated son of the... more...

CHAPTER I. A WORD IN THE PRAYER. 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 words quite the same to... 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 chapter of I Corinthians, and began to... 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 all life (John 5:26). The sublime opening of the... 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 cannot put a name to, something subtle,... 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 Jennings, Phallicism. As the conception of a deity... 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 translation of certain important passages from... 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 was placed in a cleft of the rock, and saw... more...

CHAPTER I. CENSUS OF THE MOHAMMEDAN WORLD. THE HAJ. In the lull, which we hope is soon to break the storm of party strife in England, it may not perhaps be impossible to direct public attention to the rapid growth of questions which for the last few years have been agitating the religious mind of Asia, and which are certain before long to present themselves as a very serious perplexity to British statesmen; questions, moreover, which if not... more...

SECTION I.—ITS EVIDENCES UNRELIABLE. The origin of all religions, and the ignorance which is the root of the God-idea, having been dealt with in Part I. of this Text-Book, it now becomes our duty to investigate the evidences of the origin and of the growth of Christianity, to examine its morality and its dogmas, to study the history of its supposed founder, to trace out its symbols and its ceremonies; in fine, to show cause for its utter... more...