We study the sacred books of all the great religions of the world; we see the effect exercised by those religions on the mind of their votaries; & in spite of the truths which even the worst of them enshrined, we watch the failure of them all to produce the inestimable blessings which we have ourselves enjoyed from infancy, which we treasure as dearly as our life, & which are solely due to the spread & establishment of the Christian faith. We read the systems & treatises of ancient philosophies, & in spite of all the noble elements in which they contain, we see their total incapacity to console, or support, or deliver, or regenerate the world.
Then we see the light of Christianity dawning like a tender spring day amid the universal & intolerable darkness. From the first, that new religion allies itself with the world's utter feeblenesses, & those feeblenesses it shares; yet without wealth, without learning, without genius, without arms, without anything to dazzle & attract the devotion of outcasts & exiles, of fugitives & prisoners — numbering among its earliest converts not many wise, not many noble, not many mighty — with no blessing save such as cometh from Above — with no light save that comes from Heaven — it puts to flight kings & their armies; it breathes a new life, & a new hope, & a new & unknown holiness into a guilty & decrepit world. This we see; & we see the work grow, & increase, & become more & more irresistible, & spread 'with the gentleness of a sea that caresses the shore.'
Words fail when attempting to speak of Jesus, the Founder of Christianity. His birth, life & death are historical & known to all. His teaching was public & accessible to the humblest. Long years of learning, awful initiation ceremonies, & striking terror in the adept's soul, were not required from the followers of Christ. Himself the bearer of that Light which He taught was not to be found in man's earthly nature but was to be sought from without, invoked God with humble prayer & faith, & performed all miracles. Therein is Christ's teaching diametrically opposed to that of the high adepts whose secret doctrine was that man had divinity in himself & could bring it out by exercise of will, by concentration of thought, & scientific psychic development.
Fear, the predominant feature attendant upon all other religious systems, was foreign to the adherents of Christ, who were repeatedly told: 'Fear not... Be not afraid.' No bonds, no fetters were imposed by Him in the shape of ritualism. Love of God & love of neighbour were the only precepts, Faith & Charity the only means through which the divine Spirit gave man transcendental power over moral evil & physical ills. No purer & simpler doctrine, no greater knowledge of the communion possible between God & man had ever been given.
Yet, within a short time after the death of Christ, ritualism began to appear. A theological system of dogmas & beliefs was devised, modes of worship elaborated & a hierarchy arose, with all their attendant evils. However, the Christian faith, under the lash of persecution, had shown the world the power of Faith & Charity. And against this power the forces of evil have ever been unfurled. Blow after blow was dealt to the rising church. Both its beliefs & practices were attacked by those who professed other views & worshipped other gods & who designed all schemes to subvert & pervert Christianity. Henceforth has it ever been, the history of Christianity & of Gnosticism develop side by side, the perversion & destruction of the former being the aims of the latter."
--Frederic W. Farrar, 1874.
The pdf file can be found here: https://www.cumorah.com/etexts/farrarlifeofchrist.pdf
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