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The Fundamentals NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.
“I know men, and I tell you Jesus Christ was not a mgn. Superficial minds see a resemblance between Christ and the founders of empires and the gods of other religions. That resemblance does not exist. There is between Christianity and other religions the distance of infinity. Alexander, Casar, Charlemagne and myself founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius ? Upon sheer force. Jesus Christ alone founded His empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men will die for Him. In every other existence but that of Christ how many imperfections! From the first day to the last He is the same; majestic and simple; infinitely firm and infinitely gentle. He proposes to our faith a series of mys teries and commands with authority that we should believe them, giving no other reason than those tremendous words, ‘I am God.’ “The Bible contains a complete series of acts and of his torical men to explain time and eternity, such as no other relig ion has to offer. If it is not the true religion, one is very excus able in being deceived; for everything in it is grand and worthy of God. The more I consider the Gospel, the more I am assured that there is nothing there which is not beyond the march of events and above the human mind. Even the impious themselves have never dared to deny the sublimity of the Gos pel, which inspires them with a sort of compulsory veneration. What happiness that Book procures for those who believe it 1” GOETHE. “It is a belief in the Bible which has served me as the guide of my moral and literary life. No criticism will be able to perplex the confidence which we have entertained of a writing whose contents have stirred up and given life to our vital energy by its own. The farther the ages advance in civiliza tion the more will the Bible be used.”
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