16. "Wash you make you clean; put away the evil in your doings from before Mine eyes, cease to do evil. 17. Learn to do well, seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow."

18. "Come now let us reason together, saith Jehovah; Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow." 19. "If ye be willing and obedient ye shall eat of the good of the land.”

Jeremiah VI, 20: "Your burnt offerings are not acceptable nor your sacrifices pleasing unto Me."

Malachi II, 4: "My covenant may be with Levi, saith Jehovah. 5. My covenant was with him of life and peace" (not death and destruction).

6. "The law of truth was in his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found in his lips, he walked with me in peace and uprightness and turned many away from iniquity."

7. "For the priests' lips should keep knowledge" (they should not have lost the knowledge of the Mysteries of their religion so that such abuses could have crept in), "and they should seek law at his mouth; for he is the messenger of Jehovah of Hosts."

8.

"But ye turned aside out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble in the law; ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith Jehovah of Hosts."

Malachi III, 7: "From the days of your fathers ye have turned aside from mine ordinances and have not kept them" (but they kept up their burnt 'offerings).

8. "Wherein have we robbed thee? The answer is in tithes and heave offerings" (the heaving hearts of the men).

Ezekiel XXXIII, 25: "Wherefore say unto them Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Ye eat with the blood, and lift up your eyes unto your idols, and shed blood, and shall ye possess the land?"

29. "Then shall they know that I am Jehovah when I have made the land a desolation and an astonishment because of all their abominations which they have committed."

Ezekiel XXXVI, 17: "Son of man, when the house of Israel dwelt in their own land, they defiled it by their way, and by their doings; their way before me was as the uncleanness of a woman in her impurity."

18. "Wherefore I poured out my wrath upon them" (that is, let them learn the law of cause and effect), "for the blood which they had poured out upon the land because they had defiled it with their idols" (or their worship).

And what is the promise to Israel after the suffering she has brought upon herself has purified her?

Ezekiel XXXVI, 25: "I will sprinkle you with clean waters" (sign of purification) "and ye shall be clean; from all of your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you."

26. "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh" (the heart that could kill poor innocent animals), "and I will give you a heart of flesh." 27. "And I will put my spirit within you." 29. "And I will save you from all

your uncleanness."

Does it not seem probable that the world has had a gross misconception of the teachings of our Sacred Book?

In Psalms XL, 6, we read: "Sacrifice and offerings thou hast no delight in, my ears hast thou opened. Burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required. Then I said, Lo, I come to do thy will, O my God. Yea, thy law is written on my heart."

The only account we have of Jesus showing indignation is in John II, 14, when He drove the money changers from the Temple (the people who sold animals and birds for sacrifice). His words were: "It is written my house shall be called a house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of robbers." Surely these are strong words in support of our argument.

Oh, friends, let us study our Sacred Book and develop the intuition that it is designed to develop, and show to suffering humanity the God of Love that the inner record reveals. It is high time that the white light of truth be thrown upon these books so that man may no more hide behind Sacred Writ for authority to kill either his brother man or his younger brothers the animals.

CHAPTER XIV.

LIGHT THROWN UPON OBSCURE PASSAGES

It may be well to show in a few words how much light is shed upon obscure passages in Scripture by this symbolic reading, light that will prevent much skepticism when it becomes generally diffused.

Take, for instance, the statement that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and she stood. Now every schoolboy knows that it is simply an impossibility as read literally. In the light of this understanding all becomes luminous.

The symbol of the Lord Jehovah is the moon. The symbol of the Christ is the sun. The word "Joshua" means "Jesus," which means the help of Jehovah. As we study the life of Jesus we see that His especial work (as it is of many other Masters also) is to assist humanity to conquer their desire natures, and build up purified vehicles in which the Christ child can be born. He leads them in their great struggle between Spirit and matter.

Now consider the allegory. Joshua (Jesus) is leading His people to battle on the spiritual hillsides. He says to Lord Jehovah, "Moon, stand thou still over the valley of Aijalon" (field of the animals, man on the animal plane), "and Sun" (Christ) "over Gideon" (Mount of Initiation) "only give me double time, for this is a fierce struggle." And double time was given Him, but more were conquered (slain) by the hail

stones than by the sword. More were conquered by hard natural experiences than by the teachings of the truth.

To this day Jesus still stands on these same hillsides, helping us fight our battle against the flesh, and the Lord Jehovah still guards and guides the animal man, and still the great Christ stands on the Mount of Initiation ready to glorify those who win in the struggle and reach up to Him clean hands and a contrite heart, wholly consecrated to do the will of the Father. Thus, all through the ages have the Initiations been going on as fast as a man could be found who was worthy; thus are they still going on, and so will they ever be given so long as a man lives who will he helped by their assistance.

Take the story of Jonah that has given so much trouble to teachers because of the evident absurdities of the literal reading of the tale. Everyone today knows that a whale cannot swallow a man, and every Biblical student knows that the word translated whale should have been translated big fish.

Now we find that one of the local usages of the region in which the episode of Jonah is placed is to call the caves washed out by the waves along the coast by the same name that was used in the account to describe the one that swallowed Jonah. One who has traveled extensively along that coast says that these caves often have plenty of dry land in the back part, but frequently the mouths are covered by the incoming tide or by a storm that blows landward. By looking it up you will find that Jesus uses the same word when he speaks of the incident; that is, the same Greek word that means fish. He tells us that these caves often are inhabited during storms by those who