belief that He never came at all.

All religions crystalize, become materialized, and lose their spiritual
significance. That is precisely what has happened to the various great
religions of the modern world, including Christianity. It is no longer
the dynamic thing in the lives of the people it once was. That's why a
world war was possible. The fault is not with the teachings of the
Christ. The trouble is that the world has not lived by them. We need a
restatement of the old teachings in the terms of modern life that shall
again make it a living force in the lives of men. It is when the World
Teacher is most needed that he comes; and when has the need been greater
than now? The world war has demonstrated the failure of so-called
Christian civilization. We have seen the highest type of that
civilization revert to the law of the jungle, deliberately disregard
the usages of civilized warfare, and commit atrocities that would shame
barbarians. We surely need no further proof that the Christian religion
has not accomplished all that the spiritual hierarchy had a right to
hope for, and that the coming of the Christ again is a necessity.

But the spiritual hierarchy sends its great ambassadors only when the
time is propitious, only when the world is ready to listen. Perhaps such
an event can never be predicted in terms of time, but only in those of
conditions. When the strength of the nations is spent, when the slain
totals appalling numbers, when few homes of high or low degree are
without their terrible sacrifice, when the heart of the race is filled
with anguish, when famine and disease have done their awful work, and
humanity fully realizes what the reaction from greed, lust, cruelty and
revenge actually means, the world will be ready to listen as it never
listened before, and after that we may reasonably expect the Christ to
again appear to re-proclaim the ancient truth in terms of modern life.

The supermen are not myths nor figments of imagination. They are as
natural and comprehensive as human beings. In the regular order of
evolution we shall reach their level and join their ranks while younger
humanities shall attain our present estate. As the supermen rose we,
too, shall rise. Our past has been evolution's night. Our present is its
dawn. Our future shall be its perfect day. Think of that night from
which we have emerged--a chaos of contending forces, a world in which
might was the measure of right, a civilization