Open Court Publishing Company
Published: 2016-08-15
Total Pages: 84
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Excerpt from The Open Court, Vol. 34: June, 1920 The foundations Of intolerance and bitterness and particularism have been undermined by the historical investigators, and their parapets are crumbling away. We have gotten back beyond Augus tine and Origen, we are getting back behind Paul, back even to Jesus himself. And as we do so there comes into the minds of most Of us the remembrance Of a certain day at Jerusalem when the question was asked, What commandment is the first of all? And we recall the noble words Of the reply, The first is, Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. The second is this, Tho-u shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other command ment greater than these. And when we ask ourselves in perplexity just what it is to be a Christian we hear the answer, Behold my mother and my brethren. Whosoever shall do the will Of God, the same is my brother and sister and mother. How refreshing are such words to our tired souls, how sweetly they sound across the centuries, like echoes out Of paradise! As when in the restoration of some ancient cathedral a coat Of white wash has been removed and underneath is found untouched the beautiful painting of some long-dead master, so when the accretions Of superstition and dogma and tradition have been taken away from the edifice of historical Christianity, the gospel of Jesus is left um changed and unchanging in its eternal beauty, so that we are moved to exclaim with the apostle, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day. And forever! About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.