they attained their present height. We are given the view of the Great Brother, whom the Jews called Lord Jehovah, guiding the race upon the physical plane; Joshua (Jesus) and the other Masters with Him, teaching them to purify themselves, and the Great Christ teaching them how to attain the "Glory I had with the Father before the world was. How to become the perfect, the God-Man.

The four letters IHVH translated Jehovah indicating the Trinity of manifestations of the Supreme is used in three senses in the Old Testament. El Jehovah, El Shadai (God Almighty) refers to the higher Trinity; while the Lord Jehovah refers to the great loving brother whom the Hindoo calls the Manu; and the "Jehovah of Hosts, or the "Lord God of Hosts, refers to the God in the heart of every man. "The light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world" (John 1). This latter is what we have been taught to call the Soul, but this is inaccurate, for the Soul is the body of the Spirit, and this inner Jehovah is the Spirit, making of ourselves the body, Soul, and Spirit, of St. Paul. This "Jehovah of Hosts, or "Lord God of Hosts," the God in the heart, is the one that is always so rebelliously chiding the race in the places that have been erroneously translated "cursed. This is the God who is jealous. He wants to rule instead of the personality. This is the struggle of the Spirit with flesh, and its cry ever is, "The Soul that sinneth it shall die." It is our higher selves struggling with our lower selves, to reduce the personality to obedience to Spirit. No curse from the "ALL WISE, no curse from the Great Loving Elder Brother "Lord Jehovah," only our higher selves chiding our lower selves because we do not please ourselves.

So there is One God. "In Him we live, and move, and have our being. There are three Great Elder Brothers (who are types of many others who have attained now), Lord Jehovah, Jesus, and Christ, and we too are the sons of the Living God making the completed Trinity. Thus does "Jehovah of Hosts" of the Old Testament become the "Christ in the heart" in the New Testament, or the new dispensation, when the race shall have attained the divine destiny so gloriously shown us by our Great Elder Brother, the first born among many brethren to. attain the Goal, "Our Bright and Morning Star."

Surely Christ is the key note of the Bible. Not Christ the Jewish man only, whom we all love to honor and whom we all know to be the great teacher of Gods and of Men, but the Great Universal Christ, Humanity, that great Son of God who shall return from the far country, and be to the Father a Son worthy to reign with Him, when He shall have attained to "the fullness of the stature of the Christ." May the magnitude of the conception fill the minds and hearts of all who read, and may they strive to emulate Him who stands with hands outspread in blessing as His glorified body is revealed to John in Revelations.

CHAPTER II.

THE MYSTERIES.

To the average reader the thought of the Mysteries has been associated with some kind of a heathen religion that flourished in ancient days. Not many have taken time even to read the article in the "Encyclopædia Britannica", much less to study the subject at length. This is largely because western ideas have been unduly distorted by lack of accurate information in regard to Oriental manners, customs, history, and ideals. We have occupied the unique position of accepting for our spiritual guidance a purely oriental book, full of the quaint imagery and beautiful figures of speech of a very poetic people, but have utterly scorned all things else Oriental, absolutely refusing to recognize the inhabitants of those countries as really civilized, dubbing them heathen, and assuming an air of great superiority over them. We have taken their book but have utterly ignored their ideas as to how it should be read, and have persisted in reading all those exquisite figures of speech as literal historic facts. Truly it is a strong argument for the inspiration of the book, that we have not gotten into more trouble than we have. Being inspired, however, and intended to guide man at every stage of his development, it has given us nourishing food for our spiritual natures in spite of all of our clumsy attempts to distort the real meaning of the passages.

The natural result of such a course of action, however, has been to cut us off from much information that might have been ours. It has closed Oriental libraries against our scholars, and has hindered their getting the instruction needed to study intelligently the great truths they found; it has prevented their penetrating to the secret archives of the wisdom of the east, through causing them to scorn the necessary preparation; and it has given to the traveler the patronizing air which has been resented, and from

which he has, all unconsciously, suffered, not getting the information that otherwise would have been handed him gladly. In all these and many other ways have we suffered, simply because of our own intolerance and conceit.

Such intolerance has no justification today in the light of the flood of information that is now coming to our country, in regard to such matters. To hold to the old conservative ideas that have been so long regarded orthodox, one must close both eyes and ears, and utterly refuse the evidence of the senses. It would be a foolish waste of space and time for the writer to quote the long list of authorities that she has studied during the last thirty years, that have each contributed something to the light that has been shed upon her studies, but to get much information in little space I know of no more satisfactory works than those of Mrs. Annie Besant, and her co-worker Mr. C. L. Leadbeater, Mr. A. P. Sinnett, and Mr. G. R. S. Mead. These books bring a large amount of information into small readable volumes that are very convenient for the busy person.

However, from the article in the "Encyclopædia Britannica" upon Mysteries may be gleaned many suggestive facts. Of necessity it deals almost exclusively with the Greek Eleusinian SemiMysteries, in the days of their degeneration; still, in spite of this fact, many little testimonies of the original excellence of the teachings of the ancient mysteries crop out here and there, as, for instance, "The saving and healthy effect of the Eleusinian Mysteries are believed in not only by the mass of the people but by many of the most thoughtful and educated intellects, Pindar, Sophocles, Isocrates, Plutarch, etc. Plato, who finds no language too strong to stigmatize the demoralizing effect of the Orphic Mysteries (then degenerate echoes of a once pure teaching), speaks of the Eleusinian Mysteries with great respect. He compares the contemplation of 'ideas' by disembodied souls to the contemplation of the 'phasmata' revealed in the Mysteries. This saving power is expressly connected with future life; he that has been initiated has learned what will ensure his happiness hereafter. The words of Pindar, Sophocles, Isocrates agree with the words of the Homeric Hymn, that the initiated have peculiar advantages in the future world, and many other passages are equally clear and distinct." "These quotations prove a general

belief that the aim of the Eleusinian Mysteries was high, and that a lasting effect was produced upon the initiated by them. This implies a high stage of religious thought such as no other ancient faith, except that of the Hebrews, attained; but a passage in a Rhodian inscription of the fifth century B. C. shows that this idea was not wholly unfamiliar in the Greek religion. The first and most important condition required of those who entered the Temple at Lindus is, that they be pure in heart, and not conscious of any crime; conditions of ceremonial purity are enumerated as those of secondary importance."-E. B., pg. 127, Vol. M.

We must remember that the things written as to the ritual of the Mysteries are only such things as were given out to the public, not the true Mysteries, for the greater Mysteries have. never been written, but are matters of the extension of the consciousness of the individual. The lessons learned bear fruit in the life lived, but are not transmitted by writing. The teaching has ever been secret, and is transmitted from mouth to ear. As Moses taught Joshua the "spoken law" he received upon the Mount, who in turn taught it to the forty receivers, who were to instruct the initiates orally; so was it in every age, so is it now, so must it ever be, if the child man is to be protected from the danger that comes from defiling things that are holy before he is able to understand the significance of his acts.

Philo Judaeus, in speaking of the Essenes says: "But the Therapeutic sect of mankind, being continually taught to see without interruption" (they functioned upon higher planes), "may well aim at obtaining a sight of the living God, and may pass by the sun" (the symbol of divinity), "which is visible to the outward sense, and never leave this order which conducts to perfect happiness. But they apply themselves to this kind of worship not because they are influenced to do so by custom, nor by advice or recommendation of any particular persons, but because they are carried away by a certain Heavenly Love." Then he goes on at length to show how they gave away their earthly possessions, caring nothing for anything that will interfere with the teaching they get in these communities where they have a plain room, no luxuries, and live most abstemiously.

He goes on to say: "And in every house there is a sacred shrine which is called the Holy Place, and the Monastery in which