Anglican priest & novelist (1834-1924)
Of love there are two sorts. The first is that whose highest manifestation is seen in the affection of the sexes. This is always egoistic. It arises from either sex being imperfect without the other; and it is the straining of one sex towards that other which will complete it, because alone it is unable to realize perfectly its nature.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
If man refused to believe those truths which were not made evident to his reason, he could not live among his fellows, nor could he make the slightest progress in civilization.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
There is this peculiarity about the pleasure derived from the beautiful, that when raised to the highest pitch it sharpens into pain, acute and exquisite—pain which is itself a delight, produced by the strain of the soul to grasp and assimilate the perfect.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
That we may be able to profit by the experience of others, we are endowed with an instinct adapted to the purpose of drawing us into the company of our fellows--this is the social instinct.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
God, then, did not find in Himself any reason for creating. If the reason for creation were to be found in the nature of the Absolute, there would be no creation. The existence of the world is therefore irrational, for what can be more irrational than the idea of something added to perfection? Nevertheless the world exists. Reality is not rational, it is superior to reason.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
By the conception of Christ as the eternal equation of the finite and the infinite, one obtains a clear notion of the grandeur of the mystery of mediation . He is not merely the regenerator of man, He is the peacemaker between man and man, man and all nature, and man and God; the link between man and man, and man and nature, and man and God.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
In the family, from the first, the idea of authority has appeared. Protection and order are requisites of the family; and these cannot exist without recognition of an authority.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
Crowns and thrones may perish, kingdoms rise and wane,
But the church of Jesus constant will remain.
Gates of hell can never 'gainst that church prevail;
We have Christ’s own promise, and that cannot fail.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
"Onward Christian Soldiers"
Certain of the angels having fallen, God made men, that they might take their vacated places.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets and Other Old Testament Characters
Just as every man must see for himself, so every man must believe for himself. Acceptation of truth is a purely personal, individual act.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
The idea of the supernatural is not a rational verity. It belongs to the sentiment which is the faculty of perceiving the infinite, whereas the reason is, by its nature, finite. God is perceived by the heart, not concluded by the mind.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
The faculty of teaching freely is a right, for instruction is a duty.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
Meditation is an abstraction of attention from one's self, to fix it entirely on God, it is the will insisting on His reality.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
Art cannot become worn out; from change to change it will alter its type, but each type will be beautiful, and none will be exhaustive.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
All things tend to unity. It is the universal law of life.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
The whole theory of Christian ethics is an application of the law of love as the link, and of reason as the differentiator. There are duties owed to God, to one's self, and to other men. The duty owed to God is the recognition of Him.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
Immorality is the negation of my higher nature; the affirmation of my animality alone and its opposition to my spirituality to the exclusion of the latter.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
Thus there opens out to man a magnificent prospect of advance in the acquisition of truth, beauty and goodness; for if these are three aspects of the Ideal, three indefinite realities never to be attained in their entirety, because by their nature they are infinite, the progress of man in science, art and virtue is without possible limit.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
If we suppose for a moment that space exists, and that God placed the world in it, why did He place it in the spot it occupies instead of any other spot, all space being alike, and no one point being preferable to any other point? God acted without having a reason, for if space is, His choice of a place was arbitrary; but God cannot act irrationally. Therefore space is not.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
If reason has never been able to found a religion which will bear criticism, it is because of this, that it begins with an undemonstrable hypothesis and ends in an hypothesis. Consequently, all attempts to prove the existence of God are convincing only to those already convinced.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity