Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 04.djvu/802

CHRISTIANIA. 704 CHRISTIANITY. ancient and modern specimens of Norwegian handicraft. There are tliree theatres, and a iiiii- nicipal library of about 50,000 volumes. Industrially Christiania is quite important. Among its leading manufactured products are paper, oil, cotton yarn, tobacco, furniture, iron- wares and liquors. It is the principal seaport of Xorway, liandling about half of the imports, and nearly onclifth of the exjiorts. The harbor is very spacious, and is kejjt open in winter l>y means of ice-breakers. There is regular steam- ship comnumication with Great Britain, Ger- many, the Netherlunds, and France, as well as with Denmark and Sweden. The capital is the seat of a number of consular representatives, in- cluding one from the United States. The popu- lation, almost wholly Protestant, was 151,239 in 1801, and iiT,^^!; in IflOO. The environs are very attractive, ottering magnificent views. The aver- age annual temperature of i^hristiania is 42° F. Tiie city was founded in 1624 by Cliristian IV.. on the site of the town of Oslo, which dated from 1050, and was burned in 1624. Consult Amneus, La lille dc Kristiunia, son commerce, sa nariga- iion ct son 'Industrie — Risum4 historique (Chris- tiania, 1000). CHRISTIANIA, Uxtn-ersity of. The Nor- wegian State Cniversity. During the union of Norway and Dcmnark, the Norwegian students frequented the imiversity at Copenhagen: but the awakening of the national spirit at the end of the Eighteenth Century finally compelled the foundation of the Cliristiania University, under Frederick VI., in 181I-1S12, mainly through vol- untary subscriptiims. In the course of the Nine- teenth Century, many buildings have been erected, both by the .State and by private contributions. The university is under the control of the !Minis- ter of Religion and Education. There were, in 1001, about 1400 students. The library is large, containing 365.000 volumes. The university has a botanical garden and an obsei'vatory, besides various labmatoric-i and museums. CHRISTIANITY (from OF. Crestiente, Cres- iienlet, from Eat. Chrislianitas, Christianity, from Christiunus, Christian). Religion depends iipon two elements, the perception of need, and belief in some higher power able to relieve it. ^lan is very early bnnight to feel his helplessness in respect to his own life and the things he most needs for its maintenance. He earlv forms the idea of some higher being, some force of nature, some departed spirit, or some superhuman being, who has the power, even if not the will, to helj) him preserve his life, or give him food. The moment he turns to this being in supplication anil with some degree of trust, that moment he has become a religious being. Thus Schleier- maclier was right in defining religion as essen- tially the feeling of dependence. As man progresses in knowledge of himself and the world, he is led to see that this ■norld is never free from evils and that he is never lifted to the complete independence of it. Hence he begins to place the chief good for which he strives in another world and a life after this. At the same time his conception of the su])er- human being uptai whom he depends becomes TiKire elevated, and he begins to view life under othical considerations, which lend color to his view of the good to he attained in a future state. Thi< process may carry him to a high degree of knowledge of God, immortality, and morality, as it did the ancient Greeks, who found in Plato a channel for the expression of the purest and liighest form of religion which any pagan people attained. Christianity, now, partakes of the character of all religion, in that it is fundamentally a recognition by man of his dependence upon God; but it is distinguished from otlu'r religions by the character of the provision which it makes for the satisfaction of the olcmcntaiy religious de- mand. It is the religion of salvation, and it provides this through a definite channel, thnaigh the work of a Saviour sent from God, Jesus Christ. It is in its own conception the absolute and only true religion. Toward Judaism its relation is that of the perfect to the divinely or- dained, but ])reparatory and imperfect. Toward the various forms of heathenism its relatiim is (hat of the pure to the multifariously debased. It recognizes in none of them saving power. If any soul is saved in heathenism (Romans ii. 14-16), it is because it has assumed the same attitude toward God which Christianity requires, and its salvation is granted solely upon the ground of the perfect work of Christ wrought for it as well as others. Without the essential elements of the Gospel, without the atonement of Christ, and without faith (confiding trust) in God. Christianitv teaches there is no .salvation (Acts iv. 12). The claim of absoluteness which is made for Christianity is supported by the method in which it originated. It is the religion of revelation. God makes himself known to men by personal communication in a supernatural way. He speaks by chosen messengers (prophets) and sus- tains their message by divine signs (miracles), and at last, in the fullness of time, sends His own Son. who takes upon Ilini humanity, reveals God more perfectly than any of His forerunners, per- forms the work of atonement, and then sends the divine Spirit to work immanently in the .soul and be a new power of life, delivering it from the control of sin. This conception of supernatural origin is essen- tial to Christianity. The great teachers who have loft the record of their teachings in the Bible did not obtain their conceptions of truth by the unaided operations of their own minds, as men have discovered the powers of steam and elec- tricity. If the knowledge of truth had grown in this way, it would still have grown under the eliective agency of God, as the process of evolu- tion is by the inunanent working of His per- sonality (consult Le Conte, Eioliition and Re- h(7ion,S('W York, 1888). But revelation em- ]>iiasizes that personality. It is aeeomi)anied by the sense of personal contact with God. It gives truth which is necessarily recognized as coming from God and not as originating in the hVnnan soul. Prophecy and miracles are equally per- sonal. Prophecy is not a merely natural antici- jiation of the future by any shrewd guessing, or liy any special .sympathy with the divine mind, enabling man to decipher the riddle of the future, much less is it error and self-deceit. It is God's personal comnumication to the prophet of the unknown future as it lies in the divine plan. Miracles are also God's present and per- sonal interference in the course of nature. They need not te conceived as destroying any funda- mental law of nature, but they are what nature never docs and never can do without God, as it