The Mysticism of Johann Joseph Von G Rres as a Reaction Against Rationalism; A Dissertation

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. 1920 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VIII. LIFE OF GORRES, AS ROOTED IN CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM, IN ITS STRUGGLE AGAINST RATIONALISM. Johann Joseph Gorres was born on the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, January 25, 1776, A. D., in the city of Coblenz, on the romantic banks of the river Rhine, in the traditional land of Christian piety, valor, beauty, poetry, and art.176 His father, Morris Gorres, a timber merchant of substantial means, was a man of the highest integrity and of a dignity of character which commanded the respect of every one. The mother, Helena Theresia Gorres, nee Mazza, Italian by descent, as the name indicates, was a quiet and thrifty housekeeper, and free from that excitability so characteristic in the Southerner. Both parents were deeply religious and failed not to impress early upon the minds of their children their relationship to God in its various bearings.177 Thus nature, home, religious, and social life worked together, in the days of childhood, to impress upon the character of Gorres an indelible mark, namely the impress of nature's warmth and nobility, seconded by the inculcation of Christian ideals, which failed not to develop in him an elevated turn of mind, a deep sense of divine things, and an aspiration after rectitude which never left him.178 At the proper age young Gorres was sent to a school 176 J. N. Sepp, a pupil and admirer of Gorres, has immortalized the sceneries about the birth-place of his master very fitly in the following lines: Weithin und breithin ergiest sich der Rhein Kirchen und Thuerme begruessen uns drein, Berge und Burgen umthronen ihn schier, Friedliche Menschen umwohnen ihn hier.--Gorres, Berlin, 1896, p. 6. 177 Cf. Galland, op. cit., p. 9 f. 178 Read letter of Gorres to Miss K. Lassaulx, Paris, Jan. 30, 1800 (Schellberg, op. c...