m
was endorsed by the seeking of initiation by the greatest men, we must
now ascertain whether Christianity stands outside this circle of
religions, and alone is without a Gnosis, offering to the world only a
simple faith and not a profound knowledge. Were it so, it would indeed
be a sad and lamentable fact, proving Christianity to be intended for a
class only, and not for all types of human beings. But that it is not
so, we shall be able to prove beyond the possibility of rational doubt.

And that proof is the thing which Christendom at this time most sorely
needs, for the very flower of Christendom is perishing for lack of
knowledge. If the esoteric teaching can be re-established and win
patient and earnest students, it will not be long before the occult is
also restored. Disciples of the Lesser Mysteries will become candidates
for the Greater, and with the regaining of knowledge will come again the
authority of teaching. And truly the need is great. For, looking at the
world around us, we find that religion in the West is suffering from the
very difficulty that theoretically we should expect to find.
Christianity, having lost its mystic and esoteric teaching, is losing
its hold on a large number of the more highly educated, and the partial
revival during the past few years is co-incident with the
re-introduction of some mystic teaching. It is patent to every student
of the closing forty years of the last century, that crowds of
thoughtful and moral people have slipped away from the churches, because
the teachings they received there outraged their intelligence and
shocked their moral sense. It is idle to pretend that the wide-spread
agnosticism of this period had its root either in lack of morality or in
deliberate crookedness of mind. Everyone who carefully studies the
phenomena presented will admit that men of strong intellect have been
driven out of Christianity by the crudity of the religious ideas set
before them, the contradictions in the authoritative teachings, the
views as to God, man, and the universe that no trained intelligence
could possibly admit. Nor can it be said that any kind of moral
degradation lay at the root of the revolt against the dogmas of the
Church. The rebels were not too bad for their religion; on the contrary,
it was the religion that was too bad for them. The rebellion against
popular Christianity was due to the awakening and the growth of
conscience; it was the conscience that revolte