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THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE.
relying on the power of his soul to effect the necessary change from within.
We are told over and over again by Christian theologians that salvation in Christianity is a matter of grace, and that God's favour is to be sought by prayer and praise, but not to be bought by works. But we have seen how grievous a misinterpretation such a supposition actually is of the teaching of the founder of their faith, whose every word breathes nothing if not the doing of works which bear a causal connection with the ideal of perfection he set before them in his memorable Sermon on the Mount. The text of Matthew, XI. 12 is a further refutation of all such notions, and may be taken to be the last word on the subject. This is how it reads :
" From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force."
Luke also puts it equally forcibly when he says :-- “The law and the prophets were until John; since that time the kingdom of God is being preached, and every man presseth into it" (Luke, XVI. 16).
The truth is that it is a doctrine of combating with and overpowering the forces of sin by hard spiritual work, not of getting into heaven by a movement of lips and knees in supplication. The messianic statement--
“But many that are first shall be last, and the last shall be first" (Matt. XIX. 30) can hardly be said to accord with the dogma of prayer, or grace, but is fully intelligible on the hypothesis of works.
As the materialist says, prayer is an old-womanish shedding of tears of impotent helplessness, and
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