Perplexed

[brengirl82]

I need someone who is better at reading this than I am to tell me what exactly it is saying about Christianity. My dad sent it to me and I apparently don't understand uber-proper english well enough to tell whether it is saying that Christianity is defeated by science or that it is the only hope for civilization.........help

Comments

[philmjmills]

That's kind of a difficult one - it reads as though he's saying both, in a sense.

"...the science against which it had bainly struggled..." certainly implies that science and Christianity cannot coexist and that Christianity had lost the struggle.
"...were it not that Christianity is sheltered...the civilization of modern Europe might fall[.]" suggests that Christianity is the core of or equivalent to "modern Europe". But that, in itself, does not give the impression that Christianity is the key to success, just that it's where things currently sit in an uneasy kind of way (given the prior phrases).

[philmjmills]

"vainly struggled", not "bainly".

[julia_guglia]

I think he's saying that science supports Christanity...it's possible 'science' could mean something besides what we think of 'science'..it's hard to tell without the rest of the speech. Christianity could also be synonymous with 'western world' since it was written in 1899

[julia_guglia]

He also wrote this when he was 24 right after the Sepoy revolt of Muslims and Hindus in India so I don't think he's writing about CHRISTianity rather just NOT muslims.

I couln't find the whole speech...just a lot of rah-rah anti-muslim propaganda.