Anglican priest & novelist (1834-1924)
Like a mighty army moves the church of God;
Brothers, we are treading where the saints have trod.
We are not divided, all one body we,
One in hope and doctrine, one in charity.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
"Onward Christian Soldiers"
Individuality, the more emphasized it is, the better it is for the social welfare; for individuality is the perfecting of a member of the whole body. Of course, if one be emphasized at the expense of others, there is wrong done to, and injury sustained by, the body; but the perfection of solidarity will consist in the simultaneous development to its highest pitch of the individuality of every member of society.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
If Catholicism be the principle of inclusion, Protestantism is the principle of exclusion. The first is the system of conciliation of all verities, the second is the opposition of all verities to their mutual exclusion.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
Every religious revolution has been the struggle of thought to gain another step in the ladder that reaches to heaven.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
The idea so prevalent that man without woman, or woman without man, is an imperfect being, was the cause of the great repugnance with which the Jews and other nations of the East regarded celibacy.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets and Other Old Testament Characters
The rudimentary being inspired with vitality, progresses; its fluid parts thicken, its soft parts become firm, membrane changes into cartilage, and cartilage into bone, bone hardens and is welded into neighboring bones, the entire being advances towards solidification.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
The life of the animal is more complete than that of the vegetable, for it intervenes more spontaneously and more efficaciously in the double function of self-protection and continuance of the species.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
Man must emphasize himself, and consequently must distinguish himself from God. He must recognize these two terms, himself and God, as terms distinct, not only in thought, but by an act of will, for man must will himself, and by willing himself constitute his personality. However, he must do this without separating himself from God, without excluding God. He must will himself, but he must at the same time will God.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
In ethics, the conscience judges, according to a sliding scale; what it judges at one time to be admissible and good, it decides, as its experience grows, or as circumstances alter, to be inadmissible and bad. That which was right one day is wrong the next, for as conscience grows, its perception strengthens, and it discriminates with greater acuteness; its powers of analysis increase, not for the purpose of dividing and opposing, but for the purpose of reducing what is divided and opposed to unity.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
The free creature can alone say of itself "I am." In a word, the free creature is the only one with veritable being.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
Every logical act of the intellect is an assertion that something is.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
Worship is the subjection of the personality of the worshipper to the object worshipped; it is therefore the affirmation of the relations the two personalities bear to one another.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
TRUTH, such as it appears to us, can only be relative, because we ourselves, being relative creatures, have only a relative perception and judgment. We appreciate that which is true to ourselves, not that which is universally true. And truth may well assume an aspect to one different from that it assumes to another.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
The God of reason cannot be the object of religion.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
If Ahab had no weak places in his armour, the bow drawn at a venture would not have sent an arrow to him with death at the point. No bluebottles are bred where carrion is not found.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
Urith
Reason starts from itself to return to itself.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
If God had designed to work a miracle, it may justly be argued, He would certainly have given, or suffered to be acquired, a preliminary knowledge of the laws on which the miraculous derogation would take effect. But man, even now, knows so little of the world, that he is at all moments arrested by facts in disaccord with those laws which he does know, facts which are only explained by laborious study, and a more profound exploration of the nature of things. Moreover, a miracle which took place at a certain place, at a certain time, and which was to serve all humanity, must have been subjected to several or some witnesses. But the testimony of men, of history, of tradition, is never infallible; and the guarantee to us of the fact of the miracle is a fallible guarantee after all.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
No man or corporation has a right to employ any man without giving him the equivalent of his labor.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
God is not a person in the human sense, which is exclusive of other personalities. He is immutable, all-inclusive, absolutely free, intelligent and loving, that is, He is personal, because the world exists, and by its existence He becomes relative.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
In this is the great weakness of Protestantism. In their impatience of the authority of the Church, the reformers threw the proof of Christianity on a collection of documents bound together; they assumed it to be infallible, and its authors to be inspired—a claim not put forth by the authors themselves for writings which they never intended to serve as demonstrations of the faith.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity