e old testament abounds in evidences, but I shall only
mention the incidents of Eli the high priest and his two sons, Hophni
and Phinehas. Josephus says, the high priest had also the very
idolatrous symbolical meanings of every part of his dress, which being
made of linen signified the earth; the blue color denoted the sky, being
like lightning in its pomegranate, and in the noise of its bells
resembling thunder. The ephod showed that God had made the universe of
four elements, the gold relating to the splendor by which all things are
enlightened, the breast-plate in the middle of the ephod resembled the
earth, which has the middle place in the world. The girdle signified the
sea, which goes around the world. The sardonyxes declared the sun and
moon. The twelve stones are the twelve months of signs of the zodiac.
The mitre is the heaven, because above all. The seven lamps upon the
golden candlesticks represent the seven planets, and so on every article
had a reference to some particle of the Egyptian Deities. But the time
came when man understood better God's plan of salvation. And divinely
inspired they fearlessly stopped all these idolatrous practises.

Who could dare say, at the beginning of the sixteenth century that God
could only through Jesus Christ save a soul without the necessity of a
priest? Yet today even the priest himself would not dare say, not in a
civilized community, that his presence is necessary for the forgiveness
of sin. But what of the millions of people that are drifting away from
God with the idea, that the priest is taking care of their souls? Am I
criticising the priest? God forbid, for I am not. There are good and bad
priests, as far as their personal character is concerned, as there are
good and bad professional Christians, I have met in my Christian
experience. But I will say, in the authority of the word of God, that
the man who diligently searcheth the Scriptures and sincerely read his
Bible and still he insists in holding his sacerdotal office and call
himself a priest, he is deceived or he is deceiving.

"Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedec." Christ is
the only priest, holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and
made higher than the heavens, who needeth not daily, as those high
priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the
people's; for this he did once, when he offered up himself.

The Church makes men high priests which have