ce to a
particular god--of unity within a special Church, in fact. Ultimately it
may become--as for a brief moment in the history of the early Christians
it seemed likely to do--a celebration of allegiance to all Humanity,
irrespective of race or creed or color of skin or of mind: though
unfortunately that day seems still far distant and remains yet
unrealized. It must not be overlooked, however, that the religion of the
Persian B[a^]b, first promulgated in 1845 to 1850--and a subject I shall
deal with presently--had as a matter of fact this all embracing and
universal scope.

To return to the Golden Age or Garden of Eden. Our conclusion seems to
be that there really was such a period of comparative harmony in human
life--to which later generations were justified in looking back, and
looking back with regret. It corresponded in the psychology of human
Evolution to stage One. The second stage was that of the Fall; and so
one is inevitably led to the conjecture and the hope that a third stage
will redeem the earth and its inhabitants to a condition of comparative
blessedness.

X. THE SAVIOUR-GOD AND THE VIRGIN-MOTHER

From the consideration of the world-wide belief in a past Golden Age,
and the world-wide practice of the Eucharist, in the sense indicated
in the last chapter, to that of the equally widespread belief in a
human-divine Saviour, is a brief and easy step. Some thirty years ago,
dealing with this subject, (1) I wrote as follows:--"The true Self of
man consists in his organic relation with the whole body of his fellows;
and when the man abandons his true Self he abandons also his true
relation to his fellows. The mass-Man must rule in each unit-man, else
the unit-man will drop off and die. But when the outer man tries to
separate himself from the inner, the unit-man from the mass-Man, then
the reign of individuality begins--a false and impossible individuality
of course, but the only means of coming to the consciousness of the true
individuality." And further, "Thus this divinity in each creature,
being that which constitutes it and causes it to cohere together, was
conceived of as that creature's saviour, healer--healer of wounds of
body and wounds of heart--the Man within the man, whom it was not only
possible to know, but whom to know and be united with was the alone
salvation. This, I take it, was the law of health--and of holiness--as
accepted at some elder time of human history, and by us seen as