AN AWAKENING IN FRANCE.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1764, 31 May 1913, Page 9

AN AWAKENING IN FRANCE.

There is a very interesting letter from Professor Paul Siabatior in the now magazine called "i'aith and Doubt":— "We liiul ourselves to-day," lie writes, "in tho presence of tire beginning of a profound moraL and religious awakening. The soul of the preach pcoijlo is weary of tho obvious superficiality of rationalism, and tired ot those reformers who, while they proudly cull themselves treetliinkers, am full of intolerance and void of thought Skilful as they are in criticising the structure ot the past, tiiuck as they arc to cast it aside, Ihcy are wholly incapable of replacing it with all} tiling now. Lvt. us, however, ha just to thorn in Uiis: thai imwy oi tlii-m arc now boto their nubtake. j-ho ti-mUMtuv in my gantry, llioujjh it is still is to Imome moro thoroughlv awar? of our >e<-uiaiY moral, and re Uclous tasks, in the belief that these tasks will constantly enlarge. .Not lo abjnro the pii't, to march ahead vigorously toward tlie future, this-, it seems to me, is tho domiiumt purp«o we hiul to-day ill our scicntilie and luerary activity, and in our political life as well, l'rom this point of view our notion of dogma transforms itself. H loses its character of nb-. eoluto liictapliysies and rationalism to assume ail historical, but at the same tira# (i relative, real, and living character .