The transference, however, of Christianity from
the region of history to the region of psychology is the great craving
of our time. What we are trying to arrive at is the _eternal_ gospel.
But before we can reach it, the comparative history and philosophy of
religions must assign to Christianity its true place, and must judge it.
The religion, too, which Jesus professed must be disentangled from the
religion which has taken Jesus for its object. And when at last we are
able to point out the state of consciousness which is the primitive
cell, the principle of the eternal gospel, we shall have reached our
goal, for in it is the _punctum saliens_ of pure religion.
Perhaps the extraordinary will take the place of the supernatural, and
the great geniuses of the world will come to be regarded as the
messengers of God in history, as the providential revealers through whom
the spirit of God works upon the human mass. What is perishing is not
the admirable and the adorable; it is simply the arbitrary, the
accidental, the miraculous. Just as the poor illuminations of a village
_fete_, or the tapers of a procession, are put out by the great marvel
of the sun, so the small local miracles, with their meanness and
doubtfulness, will sink into insignificance beside the law of the world
of spirits, the incomparable spectacle of human history, led by that
all-powerful Dramaturgus whom we call God.
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