Calvinism a life-system - pagina 238

CALVINISM AND THE FUTURE.

234

unto the very gates of eternity.

regard to this

It is in

we hear on

of personahty that

seat

all

com-

sides the

plaint of empoverishment, degeneracy and petrifaction.

The

prevalence of a

rise

wide

of this

spirit

acceptance

pessimistic doctrine reveals to

of his

what a deplorable extent already

the

fields

show

force

social

theory

of

this fatal Sirocco It is

life.

may

what

still

give us offence

else

his

religious

Friedricji

Wilhelm,

his sacrilegious

is

his

by

mockery,

demand

for the '"'•Uebermensch"

(over-man), but the cry of despair

wrung from the heart

of humanity by the bitter consciousness that tually pining away.

What

it is

spiri-

Social-democracy also but

is

one gigantic protest against the insufficiency

of the

Even Anarchism and Nihilism

existing order of things.

but too plainly

and

a protest along the whole line against

the spiritual degeneracy of our race.

Nietzsche

has scorched

true, Tolstoi's efforts

even

but

of character, is

of malaise explains the

state

Arthur Schopenhauer's; and the

like

demonstrate that there are thousands

upon ten thousands who

would rather demolish and

annihilate everything, than continue to bear the burden

of

present

'•''Decadenz

The German author

conditions.

dev

Volker"

of the

descries nothing in the future

Even the sober-minded Lord

but decay and social ruin.

Salisbury recently spoke of peoples and states for whose

unceremonious burial preparations were already being made.

How often has

not the parallel been drawn between

our time and the golden age of the the

external

brilliancy of

life

Roman empire, when

likewise dazzled the eye,

notwithstanding that the social diagnosis could yield no other

verdict

than

"rotten

to

the very core".

And,

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