And so, slowly and patiently, Jesus wended his way homeward toward Israel, where He was to complete His ministry by three years’ work among His own race, and where He was to again raise up against Himself the opposition of the priests and the upper classes which would finally result in His death.  He was a rebel against the established order of things, and He met the fate reserved for those who live ahead of their time.

And, as from the first days of His ministry to His last, so it is today, the real teachings of the Man of Sorrows reach more readily the heart of the plain people, while they are reviled and combatted by those in ecclesiastical and temporal authority, even though these people claim allegiance to Him and wear His livery.  He was ever the friend of the poor and oppressed, and hated by those in authority.

And so, you see the Occult teachings show Jesus to have been a world-wide teacher, instead of a mere Jewish prophet.  The world was his audience, and all races His hearers.

He planted His seeds of Truth in the bosom of many religions instead of but one, and these seeds are beginning to bear their best fruit even now at this late day, when the truth of the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man is beginning to be felt by all nations alike, and is growing strong enough to break down the old which have divided brother from brother, and creed from creed.  Christianity—­true Christianity—­is not a mere creed, but a great human and divine Truth that will rise above all petty distinctions of race and creed and will at last shine on all men alike, gathering them into one fold of Universal Brotherhood.

May the Great Day be hastened!

* * * * *

And so we leave Jesus, wending his way slowly homeward toward Judea, the land of His father and the place of His birth.  Dropping a word here—­planting a seed there—­onward He pursued His way.  Visiting this mystic brotherhood, and resting a while in another occult retreat, He slowly retraced the journey of His youth.  But while His outward journey was that of a student traveling forth to complete His education, He returned as a Master and Teacher, bearing and sowing the seeds of a great Truth, which was to grow and bring forth great fruit, and which, in time, would spread over all the world in its primitive purity, notwithstanding its betrayal and corruption at the hands of those in whose keeping He left it when he passed away from the scene of His labors.

Jesus came as a World Prophet, not as a mere Jewish holy-man, and still less as a Hebrew Messiah destined to sit upon the throne of His father David.  And He left His mark upon all of the great peoples of earth by His journey among them.  Throughout Persia are found many traditions of Issa, the young Master who appeared in that land centuries ago, and who taught the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man.  Among the Hindus are found strange traditions of Jesoph