Pantheism's destruction of boundaries - pagina 7

Methodist Review.

AuT.

IT.

— PANTHEISM'S

DESTRUCTION OF BOUNDA-

RIES.— PAKT

I.*

It is not our desire to be classed \vitli tliose wlio luive no good word for puntlieisui in any form. The difference between our age and the age which preceded it is too deeply marked for this. Then it was deism, cold. and grave a ration;

alism whicii withered the spirit

every hand;

;

a conventional affectation

of society such

a state

as

exists in

on

the wait-

ing-room of the house of one dead, inanimate and weaned from every ideal. In its place we have now an age full of animation and thrift; a inuling and a fermentation of all the elements of society

;

a spirit to dai-e everything, together with

development of power which is astonishing. Were ours tlu; choice, therefore, between frozen deism, which causes the blood at length to coagulate in the veins, and this melting pantheism, which from the midst of a tropical wealth commnnicates to the soul a thrill of its own delight, there would be no room for hesitation. In India we should have been Buddhists, and perhaps have approved the Vedas. In China we should have preferred the system of Lao-Tse to that of Confucius, and in Japan we should have turned our back upon the official Shinto, that wo might share the hardships of the oppressed priests of Buddha. Fordo not forget that the deepest trait of pantheism consists of a false love; a love which, it must be allowed, steps across appointed boundaries, but which, even in thisialse and unrighteous form, is born, nevertheless, from the motive of love. It repels not, but it attracts. Its purpose is to unite, and not to separate. Call

it

spiritual adultery, but adultery, nevertheless,

born of

outcome of homesickness and of the For all pantheism is religious pantheism

affectioiuite inclination, the

pathos of sympathy.

and only later on is cryi-tallizcd into a philosophic sysand only by its degenerating effect does it work its prac-

at first,

tem

;

Copyright, 1803, by J. Ilendrik de Vries. [Tlio

above

(icsiniblo for

nriiele, althou^li

the

i):i;,ns

ii

truiislation, is

of iho liiu-iiw.

As

is

of such a quality as to render well known,

its aiiilior is

it

u dislin-

lliu evan^eliail oilliodox inovcment f)f the Reformed Cimrcli and as the article in the orijj:inal is accessible to bnl few American readers we have accepted for pnblicaliou the following admirable translation by

frnislicii

in

leader in

Ildlland;

the Uov. Mr. do Vriea.

—

Ki).

]

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