An occult wave has swept round the world.  The seals are being broken, and the sphinxes are speaking wherever they find ears to hear and minds to comprehend.  The heart of the mystery is this; there is no new thing to be proclaimed.  “Spiritual things are spiritually discerned,” and, with the divine illumination vouchsafed to all, “a wayfaring man, though a fool,” may see and know the deep things of God.  But no door will be opened, no angel or “minister of grace” or “spirit friend” will descend the ladder of light that leads to the realms supernal, no inspiration of God will ever come to any soul on earth without prayer—­in response to either conscious supplication or unconscious aspiration toward the Giver of every good and perfect gift.  The ultimate function and use of prayer is simply to establish our relationship with the divine and ever-lasting forces that rule and guide our lives.  These are ever operating to help us to live above the purely personal relationships that limit our growth and advancement along the lines of spiritual unfoldment, and to open to our souls vistas of perfectness on the higher planes of wisdom and understanding of the mysteries of immortal life.

ABSURD BELIEFS.

The supreme egotism of man has been largely corrected through the influence of education and experience which have made him conscious of the ridiculousness of his demands for recognition of his supremacy.  Each one of those high, old eastern Emperors had to have his pedestal, and his title of god, without reference to his real character.  Modern men do not expect to be real head-up gods.  They know too much to be so ridiculous.  But there are those who seem to feel that they are at least “little tin gods on wheels.”

When the Nazarene appeared among men possessing godlike qualities, it was entirely in line with the custom of the time to call him a god.  There was neither logic nor common sense in the role Jesus was to play.  He was God of all gods.  He was, at the same time, the Only Begotten Son of God, and, as the idea of sacrifice to the numerous gods was an important part of the religious orgies of the time, they could only bring that into their new scheme for entrapping souls by making the Son—­who was really God—­a sacrifice to himself, to propitiate himself, and keep himself from utterly destroying and damning the folks He himself had created.  So they made it out that this good man should be a propitiation for the “sins of the race.”  Silly; improbable; unlawful; incredible; impossible.  The more useless and undeveloped people were, the more they believed that the sacrifice of a very God—­to their egotistical minds—­was not too much for the salvation of their infinitesimal, pinhead souls.

THE RESURRECTION.