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PAGANISM AND CHRISTIANITY.

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eth no good thing; for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not; but the evil that I would not that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that when I would do good evil is present with me; for I delight in the law of the Lord after the inward man, but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. Oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the MIND, I myself serve the law of God; but with the FLESH the law of sin."

Do we not see, that to cultivate the mind-the immortal being, that thinks and determines that worships that weeps with those that. weep that is unselfish-by filling it with all good thoughts and purposes-giving it dominion over the beastial part of our nature, to hold it in subjection-is true Christianity, and that those who (cultivating their minds by philosophy) had become good men even before the Saviour was born, were "not far from the kingdom of God;" for what matters it whether we receive light from Jesus, the Son, or directly from God, the Father, since according to Clement, of Alexandria, "That philosophy which forms men to virtue cannot be a work of evil; it remains then that it should be of God, whose only work is to move that which is good * *** for thy foot will not stumble when thou derivest all good from Providence."

Christianity is no outward church, or institution; but it is an exalted Godlike mind (the kingdom of "righteousness, peace, and joy" within the soul) and in whatever age of the world men gained the mastery over their passions and appetites and enlarged, purified and ennobled their minds by education, self-discipline, then they were in fact Christians. The true Christian is the perfectly developed soul. The high office of Jesus was to give man the power of subduing his savage nature. "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb; the leopard lie down with the kid. the calf, and the young lion and fatling together, and a little child shall lead them."

God is Spirit; his worship spiritual; hell a condition of mind; heaven a condition of mind; the devil the "lusts of the flesh"-all is resolved into spirit. The "natural man" can know nothing of Christianity.

"The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them for they are spiritually discerned."

"The modern church," remarks Shedd, in his History of Christian Doctrine, "the modern church maintains the doctrine of everlasting blessedness in essentially the same form with the ancient and mediaeval. The tendency to materialize or spiritualize it, varies with grades of culture and modes of thinking. The popular mind still instinctively betakes itself to the sensuous imagery and representations with Justin the Martyr and Tertulian, while the educated intellect seeks with Origen the substance of heaven in the state of the soul. 'Most certainly,' says one of this class, 'there is perfect happiness beyond the grave for those who have in this world begun to enjoy it; and this is by no means different from that which we may here at any time begin to possess. We do not enter into this state of happiness merely by being buried.'

The Church of Jesus is being resurrected. It was put to death by the strong arm of power. When Constantine the Great, issued his first edict for destroying the temples of Paganism, and for forcing upon an ignorant people a religion of which they knew nothing, Christianity began to pass away. The spirit left the body, and a demon

Paganism took up its abode therein. What was once so lovely and beautiful became hideous and deformed. The angel face of Christianity was covered with a mask, and it became as the face of a beast; her jaws, the jaws of a lion; her tongue, the tongue of a serpent; her teeth, the teeth of a crocodile; here eyes, once so lovely, became like the eyes of a murderer, and her flowing hair like that of Medusa, each particular hair a hissing serpent.

"Yes, thy locks like molten gold,
Sheltering love in every fold,
Transformed into the serpent's lair,

That writhe and hiss thy keen despair."

Her lovely fingers became like the claws of the Harpies, that, according to Homer, "suddenly carry off persons unseen and unheard," and she, grasping in her frightful claws a burning torch kindled the faggots at the feet of the millions of martyrs. Like the cannibal, she devoured the flesh of her victims and their blood was her only drink: "and upon her forehead was a name written: 'MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH;' and I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus."

But the spirit of Christ must again return and casting out the demon, must reanimate the beautiful form; the hideous mask must be stripped from her lovely face. Rise up, O thou beautiful angel, and walk again upon the earth, as thou didst in the primitive times! Let us behold thee in thy loveliness, clothed in thy beautiful garments, and in thy right mind!

"And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, 'ALLELUIA! for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad and rejoice and give honor to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready.' And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white; for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints."

With God all is harmony. The wrath of man shall praise Him. He bringeth good out of evil. He controls in the affairs of men. He governs all the nations. He plans the growth of peoples. Like a plant the universe unfolds. Like a flower humanity is developing. All nature is harmony and love; for it is the handiwork of Him. The long looked for day is approaching that was foretold by the prophet. when the lion shall lie down with the lamb; when the blossom of God shall be blooming. Wars will yet cease. Oppressions will be ended. All men will be equal before the law. Corporations dangerous to liberty will be broken down. Lodges, societies and churches will no longer divide men into hostile factions. All men will be brethren; the Church of Christ the human family; his sanctuary the whole earth. Kings will cease to be. Lords will not be known. No man may govern his neighbor. Every man will govern himself. Legal murders will cease. Chains and fetters, penitentiaries and prisons will pass away. But schools of reform, where love and kindness prevail, will be established. No man may smite another. No man will lift his hand against his neighbor. "All will know the Lord from the least to the greatest." Inventions will cause the earth to yield bountifully. Bread will be plenty as water Want will not be known. Labor will be of the mind only. Steam, electricity, air, fire, and water will do the work. The land will flow with milk and honey.

They will

Man and woman, one flesh, neither shall be the governed. be equal. Mind, the immortal being, it has no sex. It will be said no longer "Born a woman, born a slave." All are born to freedom. The fetters of custom broken, the maxim will be: "Freedom for one

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-the same for all; no fetters, no chains, no bonds, no imprisonments -LIBERTY! The state shall not bind; the church shall not bind. individual liberty; individual equality-FREEDOM! Freedom like that of the dove, bound only by God's laws. No institutions control it; no corporations; no churches; no lodges; no kings; no priests; no popes; no potentates; no powers; no principalities.

If I had the seven trumpets of the seven angels and could sound them all at once, in tones that would reach every young man and every young woman in our country and the world, and sound in their ears while they live, the words that I should utter would be these:

"RELIGION IS GIVEN NOT TO SAVE MEN FROM PERDITION IN ANOTHER WORLD, BUT TO MAKE THEM PERFECTLY FREE IN THIS."

Christianity gives freedom from the dominion of the baser passigns; from the dominion of error and superstition; from the dominion of fear; from the dominion of kings; from the dominion of priests; from the dominion of all powers that exist outside of man's own individual soul, except God, and He dwells in the souls of the good.

Paganism cannot give men freedom. It binds burdens upon them; compels them to the performance of rites and ceremonies; puts over them priests whose business it is to "exercise authority upon them." The "discipline of the church" means "priestly domination." The Christian knows no discipline but self discipline. He worships in secret; for his God "seeth in secret"-and God is the only being in the universe that has a right to know any thing about our worship, or to enquire any thing about it. We know that we earnestly desire to worship God in spirit and in truth, and God can see in secret. There the matter ends. No third party has any business in the premises. Let man no longer exercise dominion over his fellow. He may exercise lordship over his own mind, but not over that of others. We each have inherited a kingdom, and that is the kingdom of our own souls. We have each within our reach a crown-Christianity, which, when we place it upon our brows, imparts to us at once power to rule over this kingdom. But our power goes no further. We may not trespass upon the kingdom of another-no, not even of our own wife. She has a soul that is her own. It is her kingdom. let her rule over it.

The light that enters the world today will remain; because it is diffused immediately over the greater part of the earth. Of old it shone only in favored localities; and so great was the surrounding darkness that the light made little impression on it. The rays could only pass upward to heaven. The darkness was so intense as to finally overcome the light. There are no longer hordes of Goths and Vandals hovering on the outskirts of civilization, ready to come pouring down in the midst of learning, refinement, and religion and destroy them. Civilization has gained the masterly over barbarism. Barbarism was of old the strong man armed. Civilization trembled like a child at its frown. Now barbarism is driven to the wall. Very soon and the "earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." Philosophy is again shedding its glorious light on men. Priesteraft and king-craft must ere long, "Go down into the pit together, and deceive the nations no more."

Discourse the Tenth.

SPIRITUAL WORSHIP.
(Jesus at Jacob's Well)

"But the hour cometh and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such

to worship Him. God is a spirit and they that worship Him, must worship Him in spirit and in truth."-John 4: 23, 24.

Before and at the time of the advent of Jesus, there existed in Greece several schools of philosophers-men who spent their time in reasoning upon questions of morals; the existence of the gods and their attributes; and there was probably no subject of interest that escaped their attention. Many of these philosophers had given up entirely the belief in the existence of gods. They held that the Universe is governed by fixed laws, and that there is no need of the interference of gods in the affairs of nature. Others, though holding in small esteem the religion of their country, yet thought superstition necessary to restrain the ignorant from vice and crime, by keeping them in awe of the gods. Strabo says:

"The multitude of women and the entire mass of the common people, cannot on account of their ignorance, be led to piety by the doctrines of philosophy; for this purpose superstition is also necessarybugbears to awe childish people; for reason has not acquired strength enough to throw off the habits they have brought with them from the years of childhood."

But others on account of the dreadful slavery of the soul that superstition inflicts upon its victims, tried to open the eyes of the people to its folly. Here is a picture of a superstitious man as drawn by Lucian:

"Every little evil is magnified to the superstitious by the scaring specters of his anxiety. He looks upon himself as a man whom the gods hate, and pursue with their anger. A far worse lot is before him. He dares employ no means for averting or curing the evil, lest he be found fighting against the gods. The physician and the consoling friend are driven away. Leave me, says the wretched man, me, the impious, the acursed, hated of the gods, to suffer my punishment. He sits out of doors wrapped in filthy rags. Ever and anon he rolls himself in the dust, confessing aloud his sins."

It must not be supposed that the philosophers were ignorant of the belief of the Jews in one supreme God, a Spirit-creator of heaven and earth. The Jewish belief in Jehovah was known-not only known-but by many of them more clearly apprehend than by the Jewish Rabbis themselves. Nor is it strange. Philosophical minds trained in logic pursue a thought through all of its intricate windings. If upon the thought there has been fastened what does not logically belong to it, it is observed by them. Mankind are prone for selfish purposes ofttimes to disregard the logic of ideas. To the idea of God, a spirit, is logically attached the idea of spiritual worship. But there arose among the Jews a priesthood, contrary to the doctrines of original Judaism. In harmony with the idea of priesthood (which is a species of idolatry-the making Gods of living men) arose a mode of worship addressed entirely to the eye-a worship in harmony with idolatry-the same kind of worship common to all heathen nations and condemned by Jesus in these words: "But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." Reason led the Greek philosophers to the same conclusion in reference to the only appropriate worship of God, a spirit-spiritual worship. Here is the beautiful conclusion at which they arrived:

"We shall," says one, "we shall render the most appropriate worship to the deity when to Him we present no offerings whatever, kindle to Him no fire, dedicate to Him no sensible thing; for He needs nothing, even of what could be given Him by natures more exalted

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than ours. There is no plant that the earth produces; no animal that the air nourishes; no thing that in relation to Him would not be impure. In relation to Him we must use only the higher wordthat I mean which is not expressed by the mouth-the silent, inner word of the spirit."*

Jesus said to the woman at Jacob's well:

"Woman believe me the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor at Jerusalem worship the Father."

She had just said to the Saviour:

"Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship."

She could not see why on mount Gerezim, where the Samaritans had built their temple, God might not be as appropriately worshiped as at Jerusalem since the "fathers had worshipped in this place." Then Jesus tries to make her understand that it is not of any consequence as to the place; but God being a Spirit men may give him spiritual worship anywhere. As for formal worship the world was full of it at the time that Jesus was on earth. The Jews were an exceedingly prayerful people. They believed in "public worship." Not only did they pray publicly in the Synagogues; but even on the corners of the streets. Do we exclaim, "What a religious people! What a prayerful people!" Jesus called them hypocrites. He says to his followers.

* *

“When thou prayest thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are; for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets that they may be seen of men. **But thou when thou prayest enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door pray to thy Father, which is in secret, and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly."

When Jesus prayed he went into secret places: "He went out into a mountain to pray," on one occasion, it is said, "and continued all night in prayer with God; and when it was day he called unto him his disciples." Educated as we have been, we cannot help wondering why it was that Jesus acted in this manner. Instead of bringing his disciples together and holding a prayer meeting with them, he left them to their repose, or their secret devotions, and went off by himself and bowed down before his Maker and his God, and during the long watches of the night, in that solitary place, he lifted up his soul in earnest supplication.

I am unable to discover that Jesus ever, by precept or example, favored formal prayers or prayers at stated times; but, on the contrary, protested against both, and taught that we should ask nelp of God, our Father, at all times whenever we have need, but only by crying to him in spirit. What prayers did Jesus ever utter in public? On the Cross: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do!" In the presence of his disciples just after the last supper; at the tomb of Lazarus, in the presence of a multitude, he said: "Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard me; and I know that Thou hearest me always, but because of the people that stand by I have said it that they may believe that Thou hast sent me."

This implies that he had been praying to God in secret, and was evidently spoken in order to warn the people not to forget that to God is due their utmost gratitude, and not to the servant whom He "had sent," and to whom God had given the power to call Lazarus out of the tomb. "Because of the people that stand by I have said it that they may believe that thou hast sent me." By the efforts that Jesus made to be alone when he prayed in the garden, we see the difference between his religion and that of the Pharisees. He

* Quoted by Neander.

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