The Last Of The Heretics Review

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(More customer reviews)One of the better book I have read. Just a great true story told buy the man it happened to. I recommend that it be in your lirary, if you can get it. Fantastic!

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ALGERN N SFDWE F-C-K PSEY THE LAST OF THE HERETICS We have piped unto you And ye have not danced Iffe have mourned unto you ye have not Iamente4 NEW YORK ALFRED A KNOPF MCMXXIV MANUFACTURED XN THE TTNITED STATES OF AMERICA To WILLIAM ROSSITER SEWARD My Father My Father The Chariot of Israel and the Horsemen thereof. 9 PREFACTORY NOTE It has been my fortune to live in one of the greater ages of human history. In successive stages of my career I have been influenced by the master minds of Newman, Darwin and Karl Marx. Under the inspiration of Newman I be came a Neo-Catholic and a High Church clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Under the guidance of Darwin I became an Evolutionist, a rationalist and a disciple of the Higher Criticism. In this process of growth I could no longer think within the confines of the literal interpreta tion of the creeds of the Church of which I was a member and a minister. In my effort to interpret the creeds in the light of my increasing knowledge I came in conflict with the authorities of my Church, was accused, tried and con demned as a heretic. I then renounced my ministry and exchanged the pulpit for the platform. Apart from this main issue of my career, I have had a varied and to me, most interesting history. My life has been a series of adventures. From my tenth year I have been master of myself. I was, in fact, heretical by nature. A heretic is one who thinks and gives voice to his own thought chooses his own way does not easily submit to authority. Such has been my estate. Spiritually and intellectually I have been constantly on the move. And yet both inwardly and outwardly my life has pos sessed a unity far out of the common. From first to last I have been a Humanist. God has never troubled me. I have taken Him for granted. I studied and in a measure mastered the theology of my church but it was never vital to me. It was the humanity of Jesus and not His divinity that won and held my allegiance. vii Viii PREFATORY NOTE It occurs to me that a life which has been so interesting to myself may, in some measure, interest my friends and neighbours, so I submit it to their reading. I know this to be a rash proceeding. Self-revelation is always hazardous. But I take the risk because I want to be known to others even as I know myself. If this book does nothing else, it will manifest to the world the inconvenience of a creedal religion and the mani fest absurdity, not to say the immorality, of vows of any kind and of priestly vows in particular. When a young man comes to the entrance of the ministry of the Church, he finds written over its portals the words, Leave thought behind all ye who enter here. During the formative period of Christian history, from the first to the fourth century, there was no fixed creed, such as the Church has to-day the conditions of church membership were moral, social, and economic, rather than intellectual they were the warm impulses of the heart, rather than the cold concepts of the intellect. There were, to be sure, certain beliefs which were the common possession of all Christians such as the divine sonship of Jesus His death, resurrection and ascension His second coming and the establishment of His Kingdom in the earth. But this was an emotional rather than an in tellectual belief it found its expression in life when men gave themselves up to the hope and expectation of the speedy second coming of Christ they no longer had any interest in this present world they who had lands and pos sessions, sold them and laid the price at the apostles feet nor said any man that aught of the things which he possessed was his own for they had all things in common. The main elements of association in this communistic Church were social and economic. The Church was not a State it was a brotherhood it was a family it was the Household of God PREFATORY NOTE ix It was not until the fourth century that the intellectual and political forces dominated the Church...

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