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Article HISTORICAL VIEWS OF PROGRESS. Page 1 of 4 →
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Historical Views Of Progress.
HISTORICAL VIEWS OF PROGRESS .
OUTLINES OF A LECTURE BY RICHARD HART . NOTHING can be more essential to a true understanding of our real position , than a comprehensive historical view of the steps ascending and descending , by which society has obtained its present condition , and for that purpose , we proceed to notice some of those ancient empires , whose history mainly embodies the great principles which have , within the period of authentic history—sometimes singlysometimes in combination
, —governed the world , and which have hitherto all failed to produce happiness—religion , art , force . In the great Jewish empire , we find a race who claim to be the chosen people of God ; spiritually chosen , under a divinely appointed leader . To do what ? To scatter the seeds of mercy over the earth , so that the great tree of charity might spring up amid the woes , trouble , and turbulence of the world , striking its roots ever farther and deeper into humanity , and spreading overthe whole
earth its glorious eternally fresh and green branches , bearing the bud of hope , and the fruit of joy , so that happiness might sit for evermore beneath its branches , and be fed plentifully ? No , not for that ; but to suffer hunger , famine , and plagues in the wilderness , to be cursed even to cursing , to forswear their faith , and after many trials and temptations , to attack the inhabitants of a land flowing with milk and honey , to slay their thousands and tens of thousands , and with their spoils to form a nation . We see these people living through ages , disgraced by slaughter and rapine , through centuries dignified by valour and endurance . We see them a prey to the spoiler , captives in strange lands , dispersed ,
restored , and flourishing again . We see them sinking still lower , their religion a thing of mere forms and ceremonies , of outward trappings and appliances , surrounding the atk from which the sacred fire had fled , leading them still farther away from the path of right . We find them , lost in the contemplation of symbols , to the utter exclusion of the essence which they had hidden , becoming more logomachists , disputers of terms , powerful to confuse , powerless to direct . Then we see Jerusalem fall ; the veilthat time honoured emblem of the mystery which doth hedge
, in divinity , rent asunder : we hear the hissing whisper with which the spirit said " let us depart hence , " and went , leaving a stubborn and stiffnecked people to their fate . Then came the power of the Roman spoiler , and drew his trenches round about , and raised his huge engines against the walls . Then came the determined attack and the desperate defence ; the mailed Roman , confident in his strength , and invincible in his disciplineopposed to the unarmed but devoted children of Israel . But faith
, was lost and hope was gone . The bonds which had bound the Jew to the ark of the covenant , which had bound man to man , and tribe to tribe , had been broken , and , amid internal dissention and warfare , the Roman eagles took a victorious flight , and of Jerusalem , once the sanctuary of faith , not one stone was left upon another . It was wise—it was necessary that it should be so . The icy chain of a theocracy had bound up progress—the institution had fulfilled its
mission—had done its work ; it made way for a fresher not a greater , a purer , or a holier power—else the great movement of human progression had there stood still . The Jew is the representative of faith—firm , devoted , unreasoning ,
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Historical Views Of Progress.
HISTORICAL VIEWS OF PROGRESS .
OUTLINES OF A LECTURE BY RICHARD HART . NOTHING can be more essential to a true understanding of our real position , than a comprehensive historical view of the steps ascending and descending , by which society has obtained its present condition , and for that purpose , we proceed to notice some of those ancient empires , whose history mainly embodies the great principles which have , within the period of authentic history—sometimes singlysometimes in combination
, —governed the world , and which have hitherto all failed to produce happiness—religion , art , force . In the great Jewish empire , we find a race who claim to be the chosen people of God ; spiritually chosen , under a divinely appointed leader . To do what ? To scatter the seeds of mercy over the earth , so that the great tree of charity might spring up amid the woes , trouble , and turbulence of the world , striking its roots ever farther and deeper into humanity , and spreading overthe whole
earth its glorious eternally fresh and green branches , bearing the bud of hope , and the fruit of joy , so that happiness might sit for evermore beneath its branches , and be fed plentifully ? No , not for that ; but to suffer hunger , famine , and plagues in the wilderness , to be cursed even to cursing , to forswear their faith , and after many trials and temptations , to attack the inhabitants of a land flowing with milk and honey , to slay their thousands and tens of thousands , and with their spoils to form a nation . We see these people living through ages , disgraced by slaughter and rapine , through centuries dignified by valour and endurance . We see them a prey to the spoiler , captives in strange lands , dispersed ,
restored , and flourishing again . We see them sinking still lower , their religion a thing of mere forms and ceremonies , of outward trappings and appliances , surrounding the atk from which the sacred fire had fled , leading them still farther away from the path of right . We find them , lost in the contemplation of symbols , to the utter exclusion of the essence which they had hidden , becoming more logomachists , disputers of terms , powerful to confuse , powerless to direct . Then we see Jerusalem fall ; the veilthat time honoured emblem of the mystery which doth hedge
, in divinity , rent asunder : we hear the hissing whisper with which the spirit said " let us depart hence , " and went , leaving a stubborn and stiffnecked people to their fate . Then came the power of the Roman spoiler , and drew his trenches round about , and raised his huge engines against the walls . Then came the determined attack and the desperate defence ; the mailed Roman , confident in his strength , and invincible in his disciplineopposed to the unarmed but devoted children of Israel . But faith
, was lost and hope was gone . The bonds which had bound the Jew to the ark of the covenant , which had bound man to man , and tribe to tribe , had been broken , and , amid internal dissention and warfare , the Roman eagles took a victorious flight , and of Jerusalem , once the sanctuary of faith , not one stone was left upon another . It was wise—it was necessary that it should be so . The icy chain of a theocracy had bound up progress—the institution had fulfilled its
mission—had done its work ; it made way for a fresher not a greater , a purer , or a holier power—else the great movement of human progression had there stood still . The Jew is the representative of faith—firm , devoted , unreasoning ,