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The sacrifier which is needful.—These carnest, able, righteous people of profound sentiment, who, in their hearts, are still Christians, should, if only is an experiment and out of deference to themselves, try, for some length of time, to live without Christianity; for the sake of their faith they should for once sojourn in the wilderness, if only to acquire the right of giving their opinion as to whether Christianity be needful.For the present they stay in their narrow cell, and thence revile the world outside the cell: my, they grow angry and bitter, if it is hinted to them that beyond this very cell lies the whole, great world; that Christianity, after all, is but a little nook. Forsooth, your evidence will be of no value until you have lived for years without Christianity, with an honest, inward yearning to abide outside Christianity—until you have strayed far, far from it. No importance will be attached to your return unless judgment, based on a severe comparison, not a mere home-longing, drives yon back.Future generations will deal, in this way, with all the valuations of the past: one must voluntarily live then over again, and their opposites as well, so as to gain in the end the right of sifting them,
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‘’On the origin of religions.’’—How can a person feel as a revelation his own opinion on things? This is
