“Changes are coming fast upon the world. In the violent struggle of opposite interests, the decaying prejudices that have bound men together, in the old forms of society, are snapping asunder, one after another. Must we look forward to a hopeless succession of evils, in which exasperated parties will be alternately victors and victims, till all sink under some one power, whose interest it is to preserve a quiet despotism? Who can hope for a better result, unless the great lesson be learnt, that there can be no essential improvement in the condition of society, without the improvement of men as moral and religious beings; and that this can be effected only by religious Truth? To expect this improvement from any form of false religion, because it is called religion, is as if, in administering to one in a fever, we were to take some drug from an apothecary's shelves, satisfied with its being called medicine.”—Andrews Norton. Statement of Reasons, &c. Preface, p. xxii.-xxxiii.
“What greater calamity can fall upon a nation than the loss of Worship? Then all things go to decay. Genius leaves the temple to haunt the senate or the market. Literature becomes frivolous. Science is cold. The eye of youth is not lighted by the hope of other worlds, and age is without honour. In the Soul let the redemption be sought. In one soul, in your soul, there are resources for the world. The stationariness of religion, the assumption that the age of inspiration is passed, that the Bible is closed; the fear of degrading the character of Jesus, by representing him as a man, indicate with sufficient clearness the falsehood of our theology. It is the office of a true teacher, to show us that God is, not was; that he speaketh, not spake. The true Christianity—a faith like Christ's in the infinitude of man—is lost. None believeth in the soul of man, but only in some man, or person, old and departed.”—Ralph Waldo Emerson.—Address in Divinity College, &c., p. 24, 25.
