angles, disputes, and finally creeds, dogmas, and persecution.

"Men fight like devils for the love of God." This is the ultimate history
of every religion known to man.

Meantime, the soul of man, a spiritual being dwelling in a material body
on the physical plane, is seeking real knowledge of spiritual things.

This real knowledge is an experience of the soul. It concerns, and is
comprised in, the _living of a life_. It is more than mind or intellect.
It is _knowledge_ gained by experience. "This only I know, that whereas I
was blind, now I see."

"Whether in the body or out of the body, I know not, but I saw things
impossible to utter."

Gradually man's _idea_ of God and his conception of Nature have changed
and enlarged.

Man, as a spiritual being, is part of a spiritual universe. He has been
able to harmonize his concept of God and Nature progressively as he has
gained larger views and deeper insight of both. He is no longer a puppet
of infinite caprice, nor a somewhat "improved animal."

The idea of man as a "fallen god" with the capacity to regain his heavenly
estate, is far nearer the truth.

As man advances in knowledge through the combined experiences of his
spiritual nature and his physical embodiment, his beliefs change, his
horizon enlarges, and his concepts become elevated and purified. The past
is apprehended and utilized and the future intelligently anticipated. He
begins to understand.

This means the recognition of law and order, permanency, _Foundation_, and
stability.

The birth stories, the portents, signs and wonders that announce,
accompany, or follow the birth of a Messiah or Avatar, are almost
identical. A common instinct seems to have led all scripture-compilers to
infer a simultaneous stimulus of nature and man upon the appearance of
what the Hindoo calls an Avatar.

Men, too, seem prepared to expect such an advent as its necessary time
approaches. It is an instinct which tells them that "the darkest hour
precedes the dawn."

In the Christian scriptures the premonitions and birth stories are found
largely in the Apocryphal books. Doubtless the copying and substitution
from the lives of Christna and Buddha were too plain.

At the death of Jesus the seismic, astral, and cosmic disturbances are
graphically described, as befitting the death of a god. "The veil of the
temple was rent in twain," etc.

The simple fact is that mankind feels instinctively in the soul the
far-reaching