ntial while wrangling
and disagreeing over such questions as whether divorce is lawful or
unlawful, or whether this or that observance of a minor law is orthodox
and true. The Jews consider divorce lawful; the Catholic Christians deem
it unlawful; the outcome is discord and hostility between them. If they
would investigate the one fundamental reality underlying the laws revealed
by Moses and Christ, this condition of hatred and misunderstanding would
be dispelled and divine unity prevail.

Christ commanded that if we are smitten upon the right cheek, we should
turn the other cheek also. Consider what is happening now in the Balkans.
What conformity with the teachings of Christ do we witness in that
deplorable picture? Has not man absolutely forgotten and forsaken the
divine command of Christ? In fact, such discord and warfare are evidences
of disagreement upon the non-essential precepts and laws of religious
belief. Investigation of the one fundamental reality and allegiance to the
essential unchanging principles of the Word of God can alone establish
unity and love in human hearts.

Throughout the Orient in the nineteenth century spiritual darkness
prevailed, and the religions were submerged in the ocean of blind
imitations and adherence to hereditary forms. There was no trace of the
essential foundation of divine revelation. Because of this, hostility and
hatred surrounded mankind; discord, rancor and warfare afflicted humanity;
blood overspread the horizons of the eastern world. Instead of fellowship
and agreement, religion had become the cause of hatred; instead of unity,
it produced discord, enmity and strife. The conditions were similar to
those existing in the Balkans today, where it might appear as if the basis
of divine religion were war and conflict, the adherents of one religion
seeking to extirpate and destroy another, and the adherents of both imbued
with the fanatical impulse to kill. They consider the pathway to the good
pleasure of God a pathway of blood, and the more a religionist kills, the
nearer he draws to God. These are the results of blind imitations. How
gloomy and destructive to humanity is such an outcome! If this be the
foundation of divine religion, its absence is preferable; for even the
infidels do not shed blood in this way, nor are they hostile toward each
other. The forces of hostility and strife are the religions of the present
day, and that which should have contributed to the illumina