ledge?

"_Ans._--Shall you give us a better example?

"_Q._--Well, we are willing to accept him as one of many, but not
as chief.

"_A._--Change the name. Call him by other names--Buddha, Krishna, or
Mohammed, the spirit is one--is ever and ever the same. Spirit is
one, not many, however often the name is changed.

"_Q._--Were not Jesus, Buddha, and Mohammed distinct personalities?

"_A._--No more than all atoms emanating from the same source--parts
of the great All of Being, partaking of the general
characteristics of the grand whole--but yielding to environments,
showed marked individualism, such as the force of the times in
which they appeared would create in their characters.

"_Q._--Are these leaders of religious thought not distinct
individualities now?

"_A._--No, not on spiritual planes, which do not recognize any
now."

Thus they persist in denying that Jesus holds any pre-eminent position as
a religious teacher. He may as well be called Buddha, Krishna, or Mohammed
as Jesus. They are all the same spirit, all atoms of the great "All of
Being," all as much alike as three drops of water from the same ocean, and
what is more bewildering still, they have now all lost their individuality
in the spirit world. How, then, can it be told that Christ is in the sixth
sphere, and Paine in the seventh? Such teachers, though they may claim to
be good spirits, are branded as antichrist by both John and Jude. John
says: "Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is
antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son." 1 John 2:22. Again,
"Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh
is not of God." 1 John 4:3. According to the spirits, Jesus Christ has no
more come in the flesh than have Buddha, Mohammed, Confucius, Zoroaster,
or any other religious teacher. They all simply yielded to their
environments, and showed marked individualism while on this earth, and
have now become absorbed in the "great whole" in the spirit world. Thus,
as Jude says (verse 4), they deny "the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus
Christ."

So much for their denial of Christ in his person. They also deny him in
his offices; for to deny and ridicule what he came to do, is one of the
most effectual ways of denying him. The great work of Christ was the
shedding of his blood to atone for the sins of the world; and the spirits