in the darkness he meets all the forces of evil; his
inner vision is blinded, he finds himself alone, utterly alone, till the
strong heart, sinking in despair, cries out to the Father who seems to
have abandoned him, and the human soul faces, in uttermost loneliness,
the crushing agony of apparent defeat. Yet, summoning all the strength
of the "unconquerable spirit," the lower life is yielded up, its death
is willingly embraced, the body of desire is abandoned, and the Initiate
"descends into hell," that no region of the universe he is to help may
remain untrodden by him, that none may be too outcast to be reached by
his all-embracing love. And then springing upwards from the darkness, he
sees the light once more, feels himself again as the Son, inseparable
from the Father whose he is, rises to the life that knows no ending,
radiant in the consciousness of death faced and overcome, strong to help
to the uttermost every child of man, able to pour out his life into
every struggling soul. Among his disciples he remains awhile to teach,
unveiling to them the mysteries of the spiritual worlds, preparing them
also to tread the path he has trodden, until, the earth-life over, he
ascends to the Father, and, in the fifth great Initiation, becomes the
Master triumphant, the link between God and man.

Such was the story lived through in the true Mysteries of old and now,
and dramatically pourtrayed in symbols in the physical plane Mysteries,
half veiled, half shown. Such is the Christ of the Mysteries in His dual
aspect, Logos and man, kosmic and individual. Is it any wonder that this
story, dimly felt, even when unknown, by the mystic, has woven itself
into the heart, and served as an inspiration to all noble living? The
Christ of the human heart is, for the most part, Jesus seen as the
mystic human Christ, struggling, suffering, dying, finally triumphant,
the Man in whom humanity is seen crucified and risen, whose victory is
the promise of victory to every one who, like Him, is faithful through
death and beyond--the Christ who can never be forgotten while He is born
again and again in humanity, while the world needs Saviours, and
Saviours give themselves for men.

CHAPTER VII.

THE ATONEMENT.

We will now proceed to study certain aspects of the Christ-Life, as they
appear among the doctrines of Christianity. In the exoteric teachings
they appear as attached only to the Person of the Christ; in the
esoteric they are