tians of the first, second, and
third centuries after Christ's death. These tales were injected into
the manuscripts left by the disciples, and soon began to be regarded
as a part and portion of the authentic Gospels and Epistles, although
the skilled Biblical critics and scholars of to-day are rapidly
discarding many of these additions as wilful forgeries and
interpolations. It must be remembered that the oldest manuscripts of
the books of the New Testament are known to Biblical scholars to have
been written _not less than three hundred years after the time of the
original writing_, and are merely _copies of copies_ of the originals,
undoubtedly added to, altered, and adulterated by the writers through
whose hands they had passed. This is not merely the statement of an
outside critic--it is a fact that is clearly stated in the writings of
the scholars in the Churches engaged in the work of Biblical study,
and the Higher Criticism, to which works we refer any who may have
reason to doubt our statement.

That portion of the verse (_Matt. 2:9._) in which it is said that "and
lo; the star which they saw in the east went before them, till it came
and stood over where the young child was," is known to the Mystic and
Occult Orders to be a rank interpolation into the story of the Magi.
It is contrary to their own traditions and records, and is also
contrary to reason and to scientific laws, and this distorted story
alone has been the cause of the development of thousands of "infidels"
who could not accept the tale.

All intelligent men know that a "star" is not a mere tiny point of
flame in the dome which shuts us out from a Heaven on the other side
of the blue shell, although this view was that of the ancient people,
and many ignorant men and women to-day. Educated people know that a
"star" is either a planet of our solar system, similar to the sister
planet which we called the Earth, or else is a mighty sun, probably
many times larger than our sun, countless millions of miles distant
from our solar system. And they know that planets have their
invariable orbits and courses, over which they travel, unceasingly, so
true to their course that their movements may be foretold centuries
ahead, or calculated for centuries back. And they know that even the
great fixed stars, those distant suns and centers of great solar
systems akin to our own, have their own places in the Universe, also
their Universal relations and movements. All