The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1884-12-31

the sudden explosion of materials in
themselves obscure but inhammable,
rather than from the pure light of truth
shining more and more into the perfect
day These societies are but illustrations
that there is no hope whatever for the
men or nations who abandon the high
worship of God for the idolatry of genius
and culture. On the heels of sophisms
come revolutions, on the heels of sophists
executioners.
The truth is that the stream of ten
dency in this world has always depended
upon the manner in which men pro-
nounce the incommunicable name of God
The flow of history, the vocation of races
the great vicissitudes, the rise and fall of
famous empires, conquests and wars, the
various fortunes of nations, their very
temperaments and physiognomy have
been determined by the poetic and
literary affrmations Gas Mr.. Arnold is
pleased to call them) which each in their
own way have used respecting God
Away there in India
God is Infinite Substance,
and man abandoned to silent contem
plations, inActs death on his senses and
passes through life like dream. The
adorer of an infinite substance is con-
demned to a perpetual slavery and all
Infinite Incidence. The desert is for him
more sublime than the city, because it is
more solitary and silent and grand, and
yet he will not adore it because the
desert is not infinite. The ocean would
be his only divinity because it embraces
all, only for its wild turbulence ana
strange noise. The sun which illumines
all would be worthy of his worship, il
only he could not take in its resplendent
disc with his eye. The heavens would
be his Lord if it had no stars, and the
night if it had no rumors. His God is
all these things together-immensity,
obscurity, immobility, and silence. Con
sequently there will arise by the secret
power of powerful vegetation, colossal
and barbarous empires which fall one
after another with rude noise, crushed by
the immense weight of others more gigan-
tic and colossal, without leaving trace
IN the memory of men either of their fall
or their foundation. The army there
will be without discipline, it will be
principally and above all multitude
Victory will determine not which nation
Is the most heroic-but which empire is
the most populous. Victory itself shall
be only title of legitimacy, inasmuch as
1T is the symbol of the Divinity, because
1t Is the proof of strength So we see
that the Indian God and history are one
and the same thing, only the theology
has given birth to the civilization.
Turning our eyes to the west we find
in the region of Greece, the beginning OF
a new moral and political world. Here
the immense Oriental Divinity is analyzed
and stripped of It's austere character.
The Greek God is multitude. In India
the divinity was stationary, here the
multitude see this without rest. All was
silence there, here it is murmurs, cadence
and harmonies. The Oriental divinity
extended through all time and over ali
space. The divine family for the Greek
has It's genealogical tree, and finds room
ON the small space of mount olympus
There is the repose of eternal peace in
the God Of the east-here in the divine
dwelling all is war, confusion and tumult
The political suffers the same vicissitudes
as the religious unity. Here every city
is an empire, Will st there, all the multi
tudes formed one empire. To a republic
of gods, corresponds one of cities In
the multitude of cities and of gods all
will be confusion. Men will have In them
something heroic and divine and the
gods something terrestrial and human
The gods will give to men the instinct OF
the great and beautiful, and men will
give to the gods their discords and vices
There will be men of lofty fame and gods
without virtue. Impressionable and
nervous in temperament that people will
be great in its poets, famous in its
artists-the wonder Of the world. SEN
sual to the marrow of its bones, it will
look for nothing but pleasure in life, and
will consider death happy if it occurs
among flowers Familiarity with its
gods will make that people vain, caprici-
Gus, loquacious, and petulant Wanting
in respect for the divinity it will be
wanting in gravity in its designs and
consistency in its resolutions. The Ori-
entail world will appear to it as a region
full Of shadows or peopled by statues
The east in turn regarding Greek life as
so ephemeral, its death so premature, its
glory 80 short-lived, will call it nation
Of children In the eyes Of the one
greatness is in duration-in those Of the
other, in movement. In this way
Grecian theology has given rise to
Grecian tendency and character.
This phenomenon is visible above all
i -. Al l. Il Al II