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National Religions and Universal Religions
National Religions and Universal Religions Author:Abraham Kuenen Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: of religions and their history. He who banishes the thought of "higher" and "lower" from this study, degrades it into a mere means of gratifying curiosity, and d... more »isqualifies it for the lofty task which it is called on to perform for our modern society. We shall have occasion to return to this hereafter. Let me now remark that the "genuine universalism" of which I have just been speaking is not external and accidental to the religions in which we observe it, but is very closely connected with their origin and the nature of their connection with those national religions out of which, or on the soil of which, they have been developed. This proposition will not seem strange. That which is destined to penetrate and inspire every nationality must not have been evolved in the study. It must have been tested and matured in the life of a people. But again: that which is to combine with every nationality, satisfying the special needs of each, must not be inseparably bound to any one nation. " Born of the nation and rising above it" —must not this be the formula of that which is destined for all nations ? But I am myself the first to admit that such considerations as these are in no way conclusive. The true appeal lies to history; and to history, therefore, we will submit the question. The answer, as it seems to me, is clear enough; and with a view to it I may now describe the narrower limits of the subject I have already indicated in general terms. We are to examine, The connection between the universal .. J PLAN OF LECTTOES. 9 and the national religions as furnishing the explanation and the measure of their universalism. One more word of introduction. The complete treatment of my subject would require far more time than we have at our disposal and would quite exceed my powers...« less