Abram Herbert Lewis - Spiritual Sabbathism

THE PRESENT SITUATION
20I
at Christmas, may in time learn that he is not imitating
Jesus, he is imitating the mockery of those who
crowned him before they slew him.
"But," says Renan, "Christianity is
already dead,
for she has lost her Sunday." Rather let us say,
Christianity is in danger, for she has lost the Sabbath
of Jesus. She has lost the restful poise, the
calm aim, the steady effort,
of the best Hebraic tradition.
the spiritual sabbathism
It is true that Puritan
Protestantism made an effort to recover these values,
but it failed. Does that constitute the permanent
failure of Protestantism?
Twenty-five years ago Adolf Harnack said to the
present writer, "Either Protestantism will become
more spiritual or it will perish; and if it perishes,
Roman Catholicism will take its place as a new form
of Paganism." Were these the words of an alarmist?
Has Professor Harnack that reputation?
Hardly. He is an eminent and moderate historian,
who sees history as a whole, and is therefore granted
a certain superiority to what Goethe called the "various
perversities of the day." He knows that history
is a long way from being finished, and that
reversion to type is a danger from which no civilization
is ever exempted.
What will a similar historian say of this age
two thousand years from now? Will it be his lot