Luxury and Sacrifice Audiobook By Charles F. Dole cover art

Luxury and Sacrifice

 Virtual Voice Sample

$0.00 for first 30 days

Try for $0.00
Access a growing selection of included Audible Originals, audiobooks, and podcasts.
You will get an email reminder before your trial ends.
Audible Plus auto-renews for $7.95/mo after 30 days. Upgrade or cancel anytime.

Luxury and Sacrifice

By: Charles F. Dole
Narrated by: Virtual Voice
Try for $0.00

$7.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $3.99

Buy for $3.99

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use, License, and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel
Background images

This title uses virtual voice narration

Virtual voice is computer-generated narration for audiobooks.

About this listen

 Out of the noisy disputes and sectarian wranglings of many centuries, certain great and simple principles shine forth with growing distinctness. They are peculiarly associated with the name of Christianity, and with the remarkable personality of its founder. Jesus stood for the "Real Presence" of God in this world, as the source of its life; he demonstrated that men might live in union or harmony, not only with one another, but with God; he taught that the life of love, or good-will, is the realization and perfection of manhood; he threw a new meaning into the Golden Rule, and made' it the standard and the bond of human society; by his own life and death he established the marvellous doctrine that the good man, being the child of God, may transform all evil into good, and, having borne toil, suffering, and pain, may develop stronger faith, warmer love, more ardent hope, and abounding life. These principles have never as yet been broadly applied, or reduced to common practice. They have never been even understood by any considerable number of so called Christians. A conventional or ceremonial religion, consisting of certain external acts, or involved in various rather metaphysical dogmas, has in various forms largely taken the place of the beautiful ethical and spiritual religion that inspired Jesus, lifted his humble followers to a new level of courage and serene happiness, and glowed in the earnest devotion and eloquence of Paul. The early religious teachers were like men who, we may suppose, had discovered the secret of the power of steam, and had begun to apply it in the days of the Pharaohs. But the world was not ready for their great invention; human industry was not well enough organized to take it up; slavery and other barbarisms stood in its way; "the age of steel" was still in the future. So the world failed to perceive Jesus' secret of life. Men's minds were still full of prejudices and superstitions. The early Christianity was confused with the strange notions of the times. There was neither science nor philosophy mature enough to co-operate with the religion of the beneficent God and the Golden Rule. The new religion appeared at first as an element of antagonism in the world. To the minds of primitive men a vast dualism seemed to offer itself, both in nature and in all human conduct. Christianity came into the world to wage war on evil. "The world, the flesh, and the devil" was the evil trinity against which the sons and daughters of God were called to contend. Real life was rather to be expected in another existence than actually to be found here. This earth at its best was a school of probation. With such a conception of the earthly life, the attitude of the Christian before the practical problems of civilization was naturally that of suspicion and hostility. The processes of ancient civilization, the slave-system of industry, the art and the music, the theatre and the arena, the literature, the government, in the world of the Caesars, could hardly have been recognized by the plain Christian as in any sense the movement of ideal and spiritual forces. The civilization of Rome and Byzantium was, in his eyes, a colossal display of the allurements and temptations of the Evil One. It is my wish in this little book to illustrate the practical working of our fundamental religious principles, with respect to the important and difficult problem of luxury. If it is possible to render the use of luxury beneficent, there is nothing that we cannot likewise convert into the means of human welfare. Christian Living Christianity
No reviews yet