Page:Dawn of the Day.pdf/87

Rh the passions to manifest themselves in their full strength and glory: as love unto God, fear of God, fanatic belief in God, implicit trust in God.

‘’Error as comfort.’’—Despite all that has been said to the contrary, it was the object of Christianity to free mankind from the yoke of moral coercions bypointing out, so it imagined, a more direct road to perfection: just as some philosophers imagined that they could get rid of the wearisome and tedious dialectics and the collection of severely tested facts. by referring to a "royal road to truth." It was an error, in both instances, yet a great comfort to people either wearied or despairing in the wilderness.

‘’All spirit at last assumes a visible boy.’’—Christianity has absorbed the total intellectuality of countless submissive creatures, of all those enthusiasts of humiliation and reverence, both subtle and coarse, thereby changing from rustic coarseness of which, for instance, we are strongly reminded by the oldest effigy of St. Peter, the apostle—into a very intellectual religion, with thousands of wrinkles, secret motions and pretexts on the face of it; it has made European humanity smart and subtle, both theologically and otherwise. Owing to this tendency and in conjunction with the power and,