lick, be gratified, and remain in the idol. When
some favorable signs denoted that a good spirit had entered into the
idol, it was regularly smeared with oils and then blood, in the hope
that the spirit would be pleased sufficiently to remain there
permanently. As time went on, it became a custom, a rite, and the
spirit having performed to the satisfaction of the tribe, ways were
invented to manifest their gratitude. Instead of smearing the idol with
blood, it was thought more fitting that an animal be killed and offered
to the good spirit contained within the idol. In this manner arose the
beginning of "sacrifice." It was at this time, when man began to
persuade the idols or spirits to do things for his benefit that religion
began.

Slowly, slowly, down through the ages, as the mind of man progressed,
his self-made religious conceptions advanced. He now worshiped idols,
and these idols were his gods. The Celts, the Babylonians, the Greeks,
the Romans, all had their idols. All were certain that their gods were
the true ones, and that the others were all inferior and even false
gods. But, is the modern worshipper who is contemptuous of the ancients
very different from them?

The centuries pass by, and in their wake is man's self-conceived
religion. Now, some men take the prerogative in the manufacture of
religion, and there evolve Brahmanism, Jainism, Buddhism, Hinduism,
Confucianism, Taoism, and Zoroastrianism, all inspired, all
supernatural, and with their myriads of followers who believed and still
believe that theirs is the only true creed.

Very recently, in the time-scale of our development, man adopted the
methods of "Big Business," and the religion of many gods and idols,
polytheism, has given way to one Supreme God, monotheism. Man found that
it made for simplicity and saved his valuable time if he worshiped one
god, instead of obeying the hitherto many. The "Chosen People" took it
upon themselves to bring the next divinely concocted conception of a
Supreme God, and they manufactured the creed of Judaism.

After many years, a rift arose among the Jews, and the sectarians were
defeated and expelled. Foiled in their first object, they cast aside
the laws of Moses and offered the Hebrew religion without the Hebrew
ceremonies to the Greek and Roman world. Jesus was the man who prepared
the way for this remarkable event.

When Mohammed conceived the divine conception that he would follow in
the footsteps of his