." He quenched His Father's flaming sword In his own vital blood.". Another Christian poet says: "With one tremendous draught of blood, He drank damnation dry!" This prevailing theologic dogma of the atonement, with a mythologic Jesus as principal actor, is termed the "plan of salvation!" Salvation, in its more philosophic sense, is soul-growth— divine unfoldment from the innermost outward, and a strictly personal matter. My savior is the Christ principle. It was born with me-is in me-is me. It was before the wandering Galilean; before Abraham; before astral worlds commenced their stately march through the siderial heavens-pre-existent-eternal! Neither the merits of Buddha, Chrishna, nor Christ Jesus, are transferable, like bundles of merchandise. Self-salvation, self-sanctification, were the doctrines taught by that eminent Judean Spiritualist, Jesus. Said he-"I testify of myself." Again-"I sanctify myself." Sound and sensible! The "grace of God" is as powerless to save souls, as the grace of colleges to make scholars, independent of earnest effort. "Work out your own salvation," is among the best of the Pauline writings. Personal character, not the sacrificial blood of goats and kids under the law, not Christ's under the gospel, decide individual destiny. man. Jesus' merits saved him, none else. Your merits must save you. Each soul is a manger, cradling a savior-God in The blood of one cannot atone for the sins of another. That hemlock draught poisoned only Socrates. Jesus' prayer in the garden brought angels to him, not us. God is just. Compensation is an inflexible law. Justice is sweet as mercy; both, centering in, flow out from an infinite ocean of love. Happiness comes not by imputed, but by personal righteousness; that is, right doing. Only by being good, can there be good results. Only in a heavenly state of mind can heaven come to any soul. "What wilt thou have, quoth God-pay for it, and take it," writes Emerson. Over the shining portals that open into the city Celestial, are inscribed "No forgiveness!-merit entitles to admission!—love is life!-harmony is heaven!" CHAPTER XIII. THE NAZARENE. "The Twelve' in awful circle stand And, blazing like a solar world I testify of myself.-Jesus. Entombed among myths, and buried under the film that flecks the synoptic gospels, there shines a life, gentle, beautiful, divine. The mythologic and theologic savior, copied from Chrishna, of India, aside, then, we come to Jesus the Spiritualist-Jesus the natural man, the expected Son of Syria, child of love and wisdom-our ancient brother. An impassioned theatre-admiring mother gave to England a Byron, who shocked the State Church with his bold, passional thought, and called down angels to hear his strong, loving heart beat in poetry that will live when his persecutors are unknown, save as "pigmies on Alps." A mother, ambitious and daring, rode a dashing steed upon smoking battle-fields in southern Italy; and Napoleon's sword caused Europe to tremble. Mary was calm, loving, aspirational, spiritual. Overshadowed by heavenly influences, and other beautiful and ante-natal conditions, the civilized world throbs in responsive sympathy to the moral power of Jesus of Nazareth. Whether Joseph, or a priest of the temple, sustained the masculine relation to the welcome Nazarene, matters not, so far as the present exegesis is concerned. Suffice it, that he was the natural offspring of human parents; the begotten of love and harmony, under the sweet baptismal magnetisms of angels; all conducing to an impressional, inspirational, harmonial organism—a medium-harp admirably fitted for the play of divine powers. In the gorgeous East, amid the mellow sunbeams, sifted from Syrian skies, Jesus awoke to the outer consciousness of earth-life. "Galilee," writes Renan, "is a country very green; dense with masses of flowers; full of shade and pleasantness; the true country of the canticle of canticles, and of the songs of the well-beloved. * * * In no place in the world do the mountains spread out with more harmony, or inspire loftier ideas. Jesus seems to have loved them especially. The most important acts of his divine career were performed upon the mountains; there he was best inspired; there he had secret conferences with the ancient prophets, and showed himself to his disciples already transfigured. * * As often happens in very lofty natures, tenderness of heart was in him transformed into infinite sweetness, vague poetry, universal charm. The group that pressed around him upon the banks of the Lake of Tiberias, * * * believed in spectres and in spirits. * * * Great spiritual manifestations were frequent. All believed themselves to be inspired in different ways. Some were prophets,' others 'teachers.'" (Life of Jesus, p. 210.) * * * * Education has much to do in fashioning character. Where was Jesus between the years of twelve and thirty? In what school of ideas was he educated? To these inquiries the New Testament gives not the least clue. Those scheming superstitious Bishops, that collected the scattered manuscripts, often guilty of conduct that would have lastingly disgraced the frailest of the Alexandrian Platonists, voted gospels in and out of the canon, ad libitum. Ecumenical councils debated and decided by majorities upon the comparative merits of some thirty or forty gospels, cach claiming by interested parties, divine origin. Among them were the gospel of St. Peter, of St. Andrew, of St. Barnabus; the gospel of the infancy of Jesus, &c. They rejected all, save Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The general character of the Christian Bishops composing these councils, is described thus by Dr. Jortin (Bucks. Theol. Dic. p. 99). "They have been too much extolled by Papists, and by some Protestants. They were a collection of men who were frail and fallible. Some of those councils were not assemblies of pious and learned divines, but cabals, the majority of which were quarrelsome, fanatical, domineering, dishonest prelates, who wanted to compel men to approve all their opinions, of which they themselves had no clear conceptions; and to anathamatize and oppress those who would not implicitly submit to their determinations." Upon the authority of this scholar and Christian theologian, with the testimony of many others, in confirmation, at our disposal, it is clear that the New Testament books have reached us through "fanatical," "quarrelsome" and "dishonest prelates." So "dishonest," that they voted every thing un-canonical that related to Jesus' sojourn in Egypt, and initiation into the Essenian brotherhood. Fortunately, however, a few of the more honest of the Church Fathers, with certain Pythagoric and Platonic authors, whose integrity stands unquestioned, have left sufficient historic data to establish the theory of Jesus' travels in Egypt, and deep schooling in the "mysteries" pertaining to India, China and Greece. M. Denon, describing a very beautiful temple of the ancient Egyptians at Philoe, says: "I found within it some remains of a domestic scene, which seemed that of Joseph and Mary, and it suggested to me the subject of the flight into Egypt, in a style of the utmost truth and interest. (Eng. Trs. by A. Aiken, vol. ii. p. 169.) Both Athanasius and Eusebius state that when Joseph and Mary arrived in Egypt, they took up their residence in a city in which was a splendid temple of Serapis. (Eusb. Demon. Ev. Lib. vi. ch. 20.) The candid Rev. Mr. Maurice assures us that, "The Arabic edition of the Evangelium Infantiæ records Maturea, near Hermopolis, in |