Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

then, if it does, do you not see how it makes very little difference whether the form of government is a monarchy or a republic? We have learned, even in our brief history, that a republican majority can be as unscrupulous and despotic as any monarchy the world ever saw. Machinery, then, alone is not enough to produce political perfection. Suppose one man is a workman or another a slave. Freeing the slave even does not bring the kingdom of God. But love, the perfect love that Jesus preached, would bring the kingdom of God, even if slavery remained. Intellectual solutions of the world's industrial problems are all vain,this reconstruction and reorganization of society. Not by any means that something cannot be done in this way, but they are all in vain unless love be the supreme power of human life; and, when that is the power that lights, lifts, leavens, guides the world, all these other questions will take care of themselves.

The kingdom of God, then, is the kingdom of love,- that love which makes one ready to give himself in service, which makes him perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. These, then, are some of the things that Jesus attempted.

Father, let us, in so far as Jesus saw and followed Thee, be glad to stand by his side, not wearing his name as a label, not using it as a shibboleth, contrary to the very spirit and purpose of his own life, but rejoicing in his work, and trying to do that which he tried to do,- bring in the perfect kingdom of our Father. Amen.

[blocks in formation]

.75

12mo

Christianity the Science of Manhood.
The Religion of Evolution.

Life Questions.

16m0

Bluffton: A Story of To-day.

Helps for Daily Living. 12mo
The Signs of the Times.

Life. 12mo.

.

12mo

The Minister's Hand-book. For Christenings, Weddings,
and Funerals. Cloth

Sacred Songs for Public Worship. A Hymn and Tune
Book. Edited by M. J. Savage and Howard M. Dow.
Cloth

Leather

Unitarian Catechism. With an Introduction by E. A. Horton.
Price, Paper, per copy,
20 cents. Per doz.,

[ocr errors]

Cloth,

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

30

46

1.00

1.50

1.50

2.50

Mr. Savage's weekly sermons are regularly printed in pamphlet form in "Unity Pulpit.'

single copies, 5 cents.

Subscription price, for the season, $1.50;

GEO. H. ELLIS, Publisher,

141 Franklin St., Boston, Mass.

Published weekly.

Price $1.50 a year, or 5 cents single copy.

[blocks in formation]

Entered at the Post-office, Boston, Mass., as second-class mail matter.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

The Minister's Hand-book. For Christenings, Weddings, and Funerals. Cloth

[ocr errors]

Sacred Songs for Public Worship. A Hymn and Tune
Book. Edited by M. J. Savage and Howard M. Dow.
Cloth
Leather
Unitarian Catechism. With an Introduction by E. A. Horton.
Price, Paper, per copy,
20 cents. Per doz.,
Cloth,

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

30

66

.75

1.00

1.50

1.50

2.50

Mr. Savage's weekly sermons are regularly printed in pamphlet form in "Unity Pulpit.' Subscription price, for the season, $1.50;

single copies, 5 cents.

GEO. H. ELLIS, Publisher,

141 Franklin St., Boston, Mass.

The Influence of the Christ Idea.*

LAST Sunday morning I spoke to you concerning Jesus and what he attempted. This morning I am to speak of the influence of the idea that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah, the Christ; for, as you are aware, the word "Christ" is only the Greek translation of the Hebrew word for Messiah. So, when we say Jesus was the Christ, it is the same as saying Jesus was the Messiah.

There are two figures in the popular imagination quite separable from each other, very distinct in outline and in the influence which they have exerted on the world. One is the Jesus of history. The other is the Christ of dogma. One is an historical personage. The other is the child, the creation, of tradition and of the growth of doctrinal belief. I need hardly say that the two have been so blended in the popular imagination as to make it difficult to separate them, and that the Christ of dogma has been the dominant figure in the religious history of the last sixteen or seventeen hundred years.

I wish, then, to outline for you as clearly as I can the influence on the growth of the Church and the development of Christian thought, and so on the history of the religious life of civilization, of this preconceived idea that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah. In order to comprehend the points that I wish to make, you need to stop for a moment and get clearly in mind how mighty in its power to shape and control thought is a preconceived idea or theory. Take, for example, the Ptolemaic theory of the universe. This was

*Stenographically reported.

« AnteriorContinuar »