alled by the theological
dogmas that the same Divine Wrath could be, and was, appeased by the
blood of Jesus, the Master who had come to deliver the Message of
Truth. Such a conception is worthy of only the most barbarous and
primitive minds. And yet it has been preached and taught for
centuries--in the very name of Jesus Himself--and men have been
persecuted and put to death because they refused to believe that the
Supreme Creator of the Universe could be such a malignant, cruel,
revengeful Being, or that the One Mind of All could be flattered and
cajoled into forgiveness by the sight of the death of the Man of
Sorrows. It seems almost incredible that such a teaching could have
arisen from the pure teachings of Jesus, and that such has been Man's
incapacity to grasp the Inner Teachings, that the Church built upon
Jesus' ministry has adopted and insisted upon the acceptance of such
dogmas. But this baneful cloud of ignorance and barbaric thought is
gradually lifting, until even now the intelligent minds in the Church
refuse to accept or teach the doctrine in its original crudity, they
either passing it over in silence, or else dressing it in a more
attractive garb.

Jesus taught no such barbarous things. His conception of Deity was of
the highest, for He had received the most advanced teachings of the
Mystics, who had instructed Him in the Mystery of the Immanent God,
abiding everywhere and in all things. He had advanced far beyond the
conception of Deity which pictured the One as a savage, bloodthirsty,
vengeful, hating, tribal deity, ever crying for sacrifices and
burnt-offerings, and capable of the meanest of human emotions. He saw
this conception as He saw the conception of other races and peoples,
all of which had their tribal or national gods, which loved that
particular tribe or people, and which hated all other races or
nationalities. He saw that back of, and behind, all these barbarous
and primitive conceptions of Deity there dwelt an ever calm and serene
Being, the Creator and Ruler of countless Universes--millions and
millions of worlds--filling all space, and above all of the petty
attributes that had been bestowed upon the petty gods of human
creation. He knew that the God of each nation, of each person in fact,
was but a magnified idea of the characteristics of the nation or
individual in question. And he knew that Hebrew conception was no
exception to this rule.

To anyone having grown to an appreciati