My confession, My religion; The gospel in brief

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1899 Excerpt: ...teaching impracticable and accept the iniquity of life sanctioned by the Church, or to renounce life, which is equivalent to slow suicide. However surprising it may seem to one who accepts Christ's teaching, the error whereby it is claimed that Christ's teaching is excellent for men, but impracticable, the error that he who wishes to practise this doctrine, not in word, but in deed, must retire from the world, is still more surprising. This error, that it is better for a man to retire from the world than to expose himself to the temptations of the world, existed amongst the Hebrews of old, but is entirely foreign, not only to the spirit of Christianity, but also to Judaism. Against this error, long before Christ's time was written the story of the prophet Jonah, which Jesus so loved and cited so often. The idea of the story from beginning to end is a unity. The prophet Jonah wishes to be the only righteous man, and retires from perverse men. But God shows him that he is a prophet, that for that very reason he ought to communicate to misguided men his knowledge of the truth, and so ought not to fly from misguided men, but ought rather to live in communion with them. Jonah despises the depraved Ninevites and flees from them; but in spite of his efforts to shirk his vocation, God brings him back by means of the whale, and the will of God is accomplished; the Ninevites receive the words of God through Jonah, and their lives are made better. But instead of rejoicing that he has been made the instrument of God's will, Jonah is angry and jealous of God's favor shown the Ninevites. He would have liked to be the only rational and righteous man. He goes out into the desert and bewails his fate and reproaches God. Then a gourd comes up over Jonah in one night and prot...