Dwellers in Tents, and Other Sermons

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. 1897 Excerpt: ...and fundamental in the soul, which gives us the key to religion the world over, and that desire is universal. It may be hid away from our own conciousness for a time, just as for a time we may not be clearly conscious that we are social beings, and that it is not good for us to be alone. But St. Augustine spoke for all mankind when he said, O God, thou madest us for thyself, and our hearts are unquiet until they rest in thee. Religion has its basis and impulse, not in the desire of man to find an adequate proof of the existence of God, but in his desire to find unity and meaning for his own life, in his hunger for the sense of harmony and repose which alone give life strength and stability, and men will go in search of that to the ends of the earth; it is the pearl of great price for which they will sell all other pearls until they possess it. A human consciousness can not exist, we are told, without some dawning of reverence, of an awe and aspiration which is as different from fear as it is from presumption. And it is this reverence, this sense of a subjection which elevates us, of an obedience which makes us free, this consciousness of a power which curbs and humiliates us, but at the same time draws us up to itself, which is the essence of religion and the source of all man's higher life. Now, this it is which is universal and persistent, which is in the experience of every tribe and nation, in the depths of every man's soul, though at times it maybe hidden away from his consciousness and is always, perhaps, mingled with other things. The thread running through all the labyrinthine paths of man's tortuous experience is this persisting consciousness that there is something which can give unity to our divided and ...