The Church's Attitude Towards Truth

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1907. Excerpt: ... III. THE COMING FAITH. When we speak of the coming faith, we do not refer to something coming in a peculiar way to this generation but to an idea that has been slowly coming to popular apprehension for fifteen or more generations of men. In this long evolution our own day plays its part and that is all. By its coming we refer to its spread among the masses of men so that it shall affect and control social life as its presence in a few individuals never could permit. This sort of coming is on a large scale, portending great social changes in every sphere of life, transforming popular ideals and bringing its own peculiar perils. In a large measure it is indeed already here. What we call the modern period of history began and grew out of a profound change in ideas concerning God and man, which meant a change in the way of looking at the world and man's place in it. The change at first came to a few and from these it slowly spread to the many and thus centuries elapsed before it affected institutions and changed society in any large way. It could, indeed, affect society only by reaching the men who composed it and thus for generations those who first felt the coming changes were an isolated and persecuted minority, were misunderstood and distrusted by their contemporaries, so that they suffered all the consequences that flow from being out of harmony with popular environment. Only after a long period did the minority reach such proportions as to escape the sense of utter isolation and reach the plane of what was called toleration by the sluggish majority, but this stage of toleration indicates the spread of the idea and as it becomes more and more complete it tends to merge into an actual acceptance of the idea, and then institutions begin to change and the i...