Conventionality is not Morality - great quote

by jgnat 9 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • jgnat
    jgnat

    Can you guess when this was written? (Bolding mine)

    "Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns.

    These things and deeds are diametrically opposed; they are distinct as is vice from virtue. Men too often confound them; they should not be confounded: appearance should not be mistaken for truth; narrow human doctrines, that only tend to elate and magnify a few, should not be substituted for the world-redeeming creed of Christ. There is -- I repeat it -- a difference; and it is a good, and not a bad action to mark broadly and clearly the line of separation between them.

    The world may not like to see these ideas dissevered, for it has been accustomed to blend them; finding it convenient to make external show pass for sterling worth -- to let white-washed walls vouch for clean shrines. It may hate him who dares to scrutinise and expose -- to rase the gilding, and to show base metal under it -- to penetrate the spulchre, and reveal charnel relics: but, hate as it will, it is indebted to him.

    Ahab did not like Micaiah, because he never prophesied good concerning him, but evil: probably he liked the sycophant son of Chenaanah better; yet might Ahab have escaped a bloody death, had he but stopped his ears to flattery, and opened them to faithful counsel."

    ---- Jane Eyre writing as Currer Bell, December 21st, 1847.

    It just goes to show that truth lives eternal, and people haven't changed all that much.

  • jgnat
    jgnat

    I thought this was SO GOOD. But I guess an "Impossible Question" is more intriguing.

  • serendipity
    serendipity

    I'm glad I didn't make my original comment, because I read Jane Eyre and thought of Jane Austen.

    Anyway, wasn't it Charlotte Bronte? There was lots of good stuff written in the 19th century on religion. I ran across old Unitarian sermons that seem to express similar sentiments.

  • jgnat
    jgnat

    You are right, I typed too fast. Charlotte Bronte, who wrote "Jane Eyre". Now you know what I'm reading right now.

  • becca1
    becca1

    It is beautiful, profound and true.

  • jgnat
    jgnat

    Funny, the Jehovah's Witnesses were bred out of that same contemporary religious soup. People sure were talking back then. Darwin and names from the evangelical movement include Dwight L. Moody, Ira D. Sankey, William and Catherine Booth (founders of the Salvation Army), Charles Spurgeon and James Caughey. Hudson Taylor began the China Inland Mission and Barnardo founded his famous orphanages. The Keswick convention movement began out of the British Holiness movement, Sam Jones, J. Wilber Chapman, Billy Sunday in North America, Andrew Murray in South Africa, and John McNeil in Australia. The Faith Mission began in 1886.

  • watson
    watson

    jgnat,

    Where can I find that complete quote without bolding? Excellent!

    Thank you,

    Watson

  • jgnat
    jgnat

    http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/c/charlotteb149675.html

    http://www.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~matsuoka/Bronte-Jane.html

    Or you can simply copy my quote and "paste special"/unformatted.

    By the way, to find it, I copied a section of the quote in to google with quotation marks around it " ", and added Bronte. Presto.

  • watson
    watson

    Thanks again!

  • Flash
    Flash
    I consider those words to be an absolute truth.
    Great find jgnat!

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