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RELIGION AND COMPARATIVE RELIGION
53
the Key of Knowledge the loss of which is referred to in the Gospel of St. Luke. About two thousand years back the state of things was so very bad between the knowers of the wisdom divine and the outer rabble, who read everything in a literal sense, that the New Testament of the Bible had to be composed entirely in parables, as it is plainly said: “and without a parable spake he not unto them.” The stray doctrinal gems that are scattered throughout the scriptures are intended to help the thoughtful seeker, as the proverb has it, by way of a hint to the wise. The thoughtless were not the object of special care on the part of any one; and it was taught openly: “ give not the children's bread to the dogs.”
These observations apply to all other religious scriptures that are couched in mystic terms.
Today what is needed is to re-interpret these old documents in a strictly judicial manner, and on lines of scientific thought. I am personally convinced that they all contain the same tenets, the same doctrines, the same instructions; but that it requires a regular study of Religion as a Science and of the poetical style of the composition of the sacred works to understand this unity. A very large number of these beautiful thought-forms have now been worked out, and complete systems have been unravelled There can be no doubt but that the peace which modern methods and civilization have failed to give to humanity can be obtained through religion. The reason is that the outlook of the former is purely materialistic and takes no acc future destiny of the soul ; but religion properly insis.s on subordinating the activity of a short-span of existence to the larger concerns of all futurity. Religion points out that the soul, being immortal, will survive the bodily death and will rise or fall according to the nature of the disposition it has forged and fabricated for itself in the course of its life. If this disposition is such as con forms to the conditions of life in better and happier regions, the soul will be attracted to those regions. On the other hand, if it has acted viciously and brought about an atrophy of the centres whose development is the cause of the human birth, it must go back to lower kingdoms. Life in the embodied state is always painful ; rare, exceedingly rare, are the moments when one can be said to be happy. Man has always the fear of death, disease
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