M THE KINGDOM AT HAND AN is within one step of his ideal the ultimate goal of his desires—that realm of freedom where he will no longer be subject to law, but, being "led by the spirit," will realize that he, himself, is an operator and attribute of the law. Man is law in action. Will man now take the final step into complete liberty and become a god, or continue to eat of the husks of dual concept and still cower beneath the lash of "precedent and authority"? There is no "salvation" or regeneration for Man, as long as he believes in vicarious atonement. The man who needs saving by that process is not worth the price. Recognition of eternal unity will save Man from the idea that he needs saving, because it will reconcile him to his place and mission in the Plan—the Great Necessity. It will reveal to him his true kinship to the causeless cause, the beginningless beginning, and he will know that he is an attribute of universal energy from which all forms, thoughts, motions, sounds, colors, and so-called "good and evil," proceed. In the full light of this wisdom, man will not search for personal saviors, nor quibble about the meaning of the words of men who died thousands of years ago. Jesus, Christ, Truth, Life—forever preaches the sermon in the ear of man: "Lo! I am with you now." "He that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, the same is an Anti-Christ." Only the spiritually blind look for the "coming" of Truth, or Life, the Christ who is ever present, or for the "coming" of a kingdom which is already at hand. "When ye pray for a thing know that ye have it now." If we accept a certain statement uttered, as an ultimatum, by some one who lived in the dim past, we may be called upon to reconcile the utterance with another opin ion, spoken or written by the same person, which seems to contradict previous statements in which we have placed our trust. These persons, being dead, cannot be asked for an explanation in regard to the seeming contradiction. If they could, they might respond, as Walt Whitman did when a critic hinted that the "good gray poet" contradicted himself: "Do I contradict myself? Then I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes." We must consider the facts that the opinions uttered by men in past ages extend over a period of years, during which time empires rose and fell, and new concepts of life, due to planetary and zodiacal changes, obtained recognition. Thus radical changes occurred in the social, religious, scientific and industrial world. Viewing the question in this light, need we wonder that the seers and sages, saints and scientists of the past should sometimes contradict themselves? Are we, today, so very consistent? Do we not enact what we call "sacred laws," immediately violate them and carry the case to the court of last resort and get the "sacred" law repealed? We have had high and low tariff, bimetalism and gold standard, and our great statesmen valiantly upheld the free coinage of silver in the year 1895, and in 1896 these same captains of finance declared through the public press that free coinage of silver would destroy civilization, tear down the pillars of Hercules and wrench the stars from their cosmic thrones. We have contradicted ourselves in our opinion of the earth's shape, the distance to the Sun, the origin and operation of electricity, the cause of light, the divisibility of elemental gases, the circulation of the blood, the reality of hell and the devil and other subjects too numerous to mention. Then, shall we forever wrangle over the contradictory statements of dead men who wrought in their day as best they might with the light and data at their command, with no thought that people in future ages would war to the death or live with hate in their hearts for their fellows who differ with them on baptism, the size of Noah's ark, or whether a prophet swallowed a fish or a fish swallowed a prophet? So much for the old world belief, that the Scriptures (writings) are records of men and women and places, geographical, historical, etc. These wonderful statements are fables, parables, allegories, dealing with the chemical, physiological, anatomical and astrological operations of the HUMAN BODY, "Fearfully and wonderfully made.' "Great are the symbols of Being, But that which is symboled is greater; Vast the create and beheld, But vaster the Inward Creator."—Richard Realf. BOOKS REJECTED BY THE COUNCIL OF NICEA, AND OTHER ANCIENT BOOKS B OOKS of the Koran—Persia; Hebrew (Meaning Passover); Esther; Solomon; Egyptian Book of the Dead; Adam; Eve; Enoch; Seth; Seventh Book of Moses; St. Thomas (The Doubter); Nicodemus; PtahHotep, the oldest book known; The Kabballah. Again, the researches of such theological scholars as James Legge, L.L.D., first Professor of Chinese, at Oxford University; Prof. Wm. Jennings, P.H.D., and Hon. Clement Allen of the Royal Asiatic Society, beside several hundred who might be named, embracing the leaders of thought along lines of "original sources," all agree that hundreds, if not thousands, of ancient manuscripts, tablets and carvings indubitably prove that all races of all people that have ever inhabited the earth have striven, as best they could, to leave records of the chemistry and physiology of their own bodies. Science, Egyptology, Indo-Iranian, Chinese, Japanese, Persian, or Sanskrit, all, all, forever strove to solve the riddle of the human body. Seven hundred years B. C. we have the Shu King, China's oldest book; The Shih King, 600 B. C.; The Yi Kine, 1143 B. C. Then came Confucius, 551-478 B. C. The writings, statements, philosophy and symbols of these witnesses of the truth of being corroborates our 66 witnesses in every detail. The writers of this book have in their possession a library of the ancient scriptures referred to above and know whereof they speak; but, as printing and book making is well nigh prohibited by cost, we feel that we are not justified in lengthy quotations. Again, nothing really new can be added after the ne plus ultra statement, "There is no other way under heaven whereby ye may be saved except Jesus, Christed and crucified." However, for the information of our readers we will give the table of contents of Vol. 14 of the Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East, entitled "The Great Rejected Books": Old Testament Apocrypha 1. The Books of Adam and Eve; 2. The Writings Attributed to Enoch; 3. The Apocalypse of Baruch; 4. The Story of Ahikar; The Old Armenian Version; The New-found Ancient Book. The New Testament Apocrypha 5. The Gospels of Christ's Childhood; The Protevangelium, or Original Gospel of James; 6. The Gospels of Nicodemus; The Harrowing of Hell; The Acts of Pilate; The Letters of Pilate. |