"But we must learn it sooner or later. There surely comes a time when the mind perceives that this world is the work of God also and not of devils, and that in the order of nature we may behold the ways of the Eternal; in fact, that God is here and now in the humblest and most familiar fact, as sleepless and active as ever he was in old Judea. This perception has come and is coming to more minds to-day than ever before--this perception of the modernness of God, of the modernness of inspiration, of the modernness of religion; that there was never any more revelation than there is now, never any more conversing of God with man, never any more Garden of Eden, or fall of Adam, or thunder of Sinai, or ministering angels, than there is now; in fact, that these things are not historical events, but inward experiences and perceptions perpetually renewed or typified in the growth of the race. This is the modern gospel; this is the one vital and formative religious thought of modern times."

John Burroughs Science See all quotes by John Burroughs →

React to this quote

More by John Burroughs

“Every day is a Sabbath to me. All pure water is holy water, and this earth is a celestial abode.”

“In us or through us the Primal Mind will have contemplated and enjoyed its own works and will continue to do so as long as human life endures on this planet.”

“Man’s craving for the supernatural is as natural as our discounting of the present moment... The natural becomes trite and commonplace to us and we take refuge in an imaginary world above and beyond it.”

“Science has done more for the development of Western civilization in one hundred years than Christianity did in eighteen hundred.”

“Science, in the broadest sense, is simply that which may be verified; but how much of that which theology accepts and goes upon is verifiable by human reason or experience?”

“The deeper our insight into the methods of nature . . . the more incredible the popular Christianity seems to us.”

Resonant Thoughts

"It is remarkable, that almost all speakers and writers feel it to be incumbent on them, sooner or later, to prove or to acknowledge the personality of God. ... In reading a work on agriculture, we hav…"

— Henry David Thoreau

Literature1817–1862

#writing

"A new sound in the rainy afternoon. Bobby Terry's head jerked up. The rain, yes, making its steel drum sound on the cabs of the two vehicles, the grumblig of two idling motors, and- A strange clocking…"

— Stephen King

Literature1986

#happiness

"I do not know how many prophecies there are in the Old Testament concerning the coming of the Christ in Palestine, but even had there been 3,333 the facts are that the timing of His appearance through…"

— Benjamin Creme

Art1922–2016

#knowledge

"If you feel proud, let it be in the thought that you are the servent of God, the son of God. Great men have the nature of a child. They are always a child before Him; so they are free from pride. All …"

— Ramakrishna

Religion1836–1886

#family