e pleasing to Jehovah,
who was supposed to delight in this flood of the blood of innocents.
In pursuance of this barbarous idea, the altars and courts of the
Temple of the Living God ran red with the life-blood of these poor
creatures, and the hands and garments of the anointed priests of
Jehovah were stained like those of butchers, that the vanity of a
barbarous conception of Deity might be fed.

All this for "the Glory of God!" Think of it! And think of the feeling
that must have been aroused in the mystic mind of Jesus at this
horrible sight. How His soul must have been outraged at this
prostitution of the sacred rite! And what would have been His thoughts
had He known that centuries after, a great religion would stand,
bearing His name, the followers of which would be carried away with
this same false idea of sacrificial blood, which would be voiced in
hymns about "A fountain filled with blood, flowing from Immanuel's
veins," and about "sinners plunged beneath that bloody flood losing
all their guilty stains?" Alas, for the prostitution of sacred truths
and teachings. No wonder that a people so saturated with the
abominable ideas of a Deity delighting in this flow of blood should
have afterward put to death the greatest man of their race--a Being
who came to bring them the highest mystic and occult truths. And their
prototypes have survived through the centuries, even unto today,
insisting upon this idea of blood sacrifice and death atonement,
unworthy of any people except the worshipers of some heathen devil-god
in the remote sections of darkest Africa.

Disgusted and outraged by this barbarous sight, Jesus, the boy, stole
away from the side of His parents, and sought the remote chambers and
corridors of the Temple where were to be found the great teachers of
the Law and of the Kaballah, surrounded by their students. Here the
boy sat and listened to the teachings and disputations of the teachers
and exponents of the doctrines. From one group to another He wandered,
and listened, and pondered, and thought. He compared the teachings,
and submitted the various ideas to the touchstone of the truth as He
found it within His own mind. The hours rapidly passed by unnoticed by
the boy, who found Himself amidst such congenial environments for the
first time. The talks with the travelers of the caravans paled into
insignificance when compared with these of the great occult teachers
of Israel. For be it remembered that it w