THE ANTITHESIS

between

SYMBOLISM AND REVELATION

LECTURE DELIVERED

BEFORE THE HISTORICAL PRESBYTERIAN SOCIETY

IN PHILADELPHIA, PA.

BY

PROF. ABRAHAM KUYPER,

D.D. LL. D. M.P.

london: simpkin, marshall, hamilton, kent, & co. ltd.

THE ANTITHESIS BETWEEN SYMBOLISM AND REVELATION

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, Availing myself with much pleasure of the opportunity which your kind invitation puts in my way, to say a few words to your honoured Society, it is not my design to give an elaborate lecture, but only to make a few remarks on a subject that falls within the limits of your interests and mine. This subject is the antithesis between Symbolism and Revelation, or the current of symbolical religion, which of late is becoming almost dominant in England, and now already in a considerable degree menaces our Calvinistic church-life.

The facts need hardly any proof. All over non-conformistic England there is no end of complaint, that so many of the children of the second generation are abandoning the paths of their fathers, and are publicly and earnestly declaring their preference for the episcopalian services. In one general assembly after another one of the chief topics in order has been the ever-returning question: how to keep the rising generation in the fold. In so much as you have followed the debates on this question, and the resolutions taken, you also know in what way improvement at times has been looked for. The astonishing proposition to make non-conformism more attractive, by connecting with the church a dancing or boxing school, or a large room for indoor and a broad field for outdoor sports, speaks volumes. I remember that two years ago a Congregational minister touched a different chord, when he pointed his audience to the Calvinists in Wales and in Holland, who, in keeping more closely to their standards, had no difficulty whatsoever in kindling the love for their own churches in the hearts of their children. But his voice was a voice of one crying in the wilderness, and the uneasy feeling of an approaching ebbtide among Methodists and Congregationalists in England is still on the increase. Even outside the churches in the daily press this reflux in the general spirit is watched so keenly, and this increasing sympathy for Ritualism is considered to be of so far reaching consequences, that liberal papers ascribe to it for a large part, the overwhelming majority which Lord Salisbury secured at the last elections. For three-quarters of a century, as they frankly acknowledge, non-conformism had been the stronghold of the Liberals, and it is this remarkable change in the public mind, which, religiously being more in favor of Ritualism, turns politically to the advantage of the conservatives and unionists. The interesting coming forward of the unionists under Mr. Chamberlain was no doubt incidentally brought about by Mr. Gladstone’s persevering support of home-rule, but was ...