"The Brahman who marries a woman who is not a virgin, who is a widow, or
divorced by her husband, or who is not known as a virtuous woman, cannot
be permitted to offer sacrifice, for he is impure, and nothing can cleanse
him from his impurities."

And Jacolliot adds, "It is not recorded, says the divine Manu, that a
Brahman has ever, even by compulsion, married a girl of low class.

"Let the Brahman espouse a Brahmine, says the Veda.

"Let him take a well-formed virgin, of an agreeable name, of the graceful
carriage of the swan, or of the young elephant, whose body is covered with
light down, her hair fine, her teeth small, and her limbs charmingly
graceful."

Jacolliot compares these early Vedic injunctions with Leviticus, Chapter
XXI, and the absurdities introduced by Moses as to a "crooked nose or a
squint eye."

Woman here in the West is just emerging from the slavery and degradation
of ages, and she _ought_ to know that that degradation was not the
handicap of barbaric and undeveloped races, so far as the Aryan race is
concerned, but a demoralization and degradation instituted by priests, in
the name of religion, through which they have sought to rule the world,
and so far as institutional religions are concerned, woman has had to
progress _in spite of them_.

Without the aid and influence of woman to-day, neither Protestant nor
Roman Church could exist at all, as witness almost any Sabbath service
where women outnumber men often ten to one.

One day woman will be wise enough and brave enough to dictate terms, as
she did ages ago in old Aryavarta. When that day comes, and the really
Divine Motherhood planted in every true woman's soul is recognized by man
and woman alike, God grant that she may thenceforth hold the fort till the
Kali-Yuga is at full tide, and the Spiritual Evolution of our present
Humanity is fully accomplished.

In the meantime the world will have learned to _know_ Jesus, who and what
he was, and how he became the Christ, and will have joined in his Divine
Mission to man, as the teeming millions joined in old India under Christna
ages ago.

CHAPTER IX

HERO WORSHIP AND FOLKLORE

The history of every people, of all time, and of every religion of which
we have any record, reveals a similar origin, course, and destiny.

We of the present day have the advantage of these records upon which to
institute comparisons, ascertain relations, and draw conclusions.

True, the partisa