work in the cause of human enlightenment, and the soul’s redemption.  The whole vast aura of the earth, the illimitable ether trembles and thrills with the majesty of the word.  High above the thunder-roll of human discontent and awful pain, blazes the lightning of thought, and the undying aspiration of the soul.  And thus shall we tell our story—­thus record the history of the now oncoming race.  Not in material emblems only, consecrated to the forces of nature; but in the spiritual records which tell of the freeing of humanity from the tyranny of effete religions, and the upbuilding of a new composite race, fear free, and worshipful only of recognized universal truth.

ETHICAL LAW.

Setting aside all our hereditary beliefs, all our theological teachings let us try to consider the true teachings of Jesus as differentiated from the instructions given by Moses for the guidance of the Jews.  Moses never told his people to love and forgive their enemies.  Jesus made a strong point of this, even bidding his disciples to forgive injuries to the seventieth time.  Moses impressed upon his people the excellence of revenge, always demanding “an eye for an eye,” a life for a life.  Jesus said all that sort of compensation rested forever with God, that He alone, who saw and knew the hearts of men, could deal justly with them.  The old Jewish law stoned to death the immoral woman—­not the man—­O no! certainly not!  Jesus said to a flagrant woman brought before him by a rabble of men:  “Let him that is without sin cast the first stone.”  What divine sarcasm, and how they are said to have slunk away under his perception of them!

How is it now with the Christian religion in the so-called Christian nations?  Where on the face of the earth is there a community or a people that is governed and controlled by the real teachings of the Christ?

All our jurisprudence is based upon the laws given to the Jews by their leader and lawgiver.  We take the lives of those people who are guilty of breaking certain laws of ours based upon the laws of Moses, and while we do not stone the life out of those women—­not men—­whom we prove guilty of breaking the seventh commandment, we do build up against them walls of conventionality, and of uncharity harder than the rocks once used for the killing of their bodies.

Consider this beautiful law now in operation in the state of New York.  If a poor, starving, homeless, hopeless human being, maddened by the bitter woes of life, seeks surcease of pain by throwing off his own individual life, by committing suicide, the law insists that such a one shall be not only forced back to a continuance of a horrible existence here, but that each and every one of such sinners shall be punished by imprisonment and fine.  If that isn’t serving the devil, what in the name of common sense is it?  Where are the good Samaritans among the pretended followers of the loving Christ?  What