MODERNISM 
 
 According to the Law of Sensual Impression 
 and Historical Inspiration 
 
 BY 
 J. J. McCABE 
 
 Author of Several Small Books on Science, Political Economy, 
 Theology, History, and of Poetry and Music 
 
 ^ UNIVERSITY 
 
 j^ ^TP 1 oon 
 *r Oi_r io J2U >, ,; 
 
 ^- OrUiwi 
 
 SOLD BY 
 
 JOSEPH McDONOUGH 
 
 BOOK AND PUBLISHING Co. 
 
 ALBANY, N. Y. 
 
 PBBSS or 
 
 BBANDOW FEINTING COMPANY 
 ALBANY, N. Y. 
 
Copyright June 1910 
 By the author 
 
 The Preface was taken out as the poem will answer for preface and introduction. 
 
 ERRATA 
 
 Page 
 
 Line 
 
 Wrong 
 
 Right 
 
 30 
 
 '7 
 
 Shades 
 
 Shade 
 
 35 
 
 2 3 
 
 West 
 
 East 
 
 40 
 
 2 
 
 Sunset 
 
 Sun set 
 
 65 
 
 22 
 
 positions 
 
 position 
 
 US 
 
 10 
 
 blinding 
 
 blending 
 
 I 37 
 
 J 7 
 
 larger 
 
 large 
 
 144 
 
 10 
 
 form 
 
 from 
 
 144 
 
 35 
 
 continued 
 
 continual 
 
 i53 
 
 21 
 
 Sun and Earth 
 
 Sun or Earth 
 
 I forgot to note quotations from Joseph McCabe's life of St. Augustine about num- 
 ber of Christians, etc., page 131, and Primate Secundus page 147. 
 
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO HOMER 
 
 THE WORLD BEFORE THE ICE AGE 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface 3 
 
 Introduction 5 
 
 Man and Beast 1 1 
 
 Man and God 19 
 
 Man and the Earth 26 
 
 Discovery of Barley 47 
 
 Discovery of the Compass 50-51 
 
 Hearth of the Universe and Fire Worship 52 
 
 Atland or Atlantis 53 
 
 Pan and Pantheism 62-63 
 
 Sons of God and Daughters of Men 67 
 
 Pythagoras and Astronomy 69 
 
 Angels 73 
 
 Cycle of Eclipses and Avatars or Messiahs 75 
 
 Serapis 79 
 
 Genesis and Adam and Eve 80 
 
 Augustus, the Messiah of the Era of Peace and Good Will to Man. . 88 
 
 Destruction of Jerusalem 91 
 
 Preface of Silas the Monk who had been at the Siege of Jerusalem to 
 the Story of John the Presbyter about Jesus and the Christian 
 
 Brotherhood 96 
 
 The New Religion the short poem 139 
 
 Interesting notes of much importance 141 
 
 Carbon Comet; Comets must Come Near the Earth to Affect It . . 142 
 
 The Four Races and their Wanderings 142 
 
 The Jewish Legend 1 43 
 
 Persecutions 144 
 
 Constantine 145 
 
 The Heliocentric Theory 148 
 
 Sack of Rome 151 
 
 Semi-Christian Literature 154 
 
 Lectures 156 
 
 740469 
 
PREFACE 
 
 There is nothing novel in a new religion. For thousands of 
 years new religions have sprung up in every part of the earth. 
 Those only have persisted which have written documents. The 
 only ones that still exist have books similar in many respects to 
 our Bible. As many different sects claim to draw their inspira- 
 tion from our Bible, so in like manner, numerous sects draw 
 their inspiration from the other Bibles of Asia and Africa. 
 
 Upon examination we find that none of these Bibles are reliable. 
 They treat of history, science, ethics and the knowledge of God, 
 and we find that their history, science, ethics and knowledge of 
 God are practically worthless. Therefore if it be necessary to 
 have a book containing truthful history, science, ethics and the 
 knowledge of God, that we may have a useful religion, all these 
 old books must be laid aside and regarded simply as ancient litera- 
 ture. If a book containing the history of religion be essential, in 
 order that men may have a useful guide in such matters, let us 
 have a book that will give us the history of religion, as near as 
 it can be ascertained, and it should be so written that it will not 
 need any one to help the reader to interpret it. The new religion 
 should assume no authority. It should leave every one free to 
 follow the dictates of reason not the dictates of any one who 
 assumes to have authority from God, but it must inform him that 
 it will be obligatory on him to practice morality. Not the morality 
 taught by the examples portrayed in some of these old Bibles of 
 men whom they claim were formed after the heart of God, but 
 virtue and morality that knowledge and experience have taught 
 us are the most valuable. 
 
 To make this book entertaining as well as instructive, an old 
 legend spoken of by Plato has been woven into the text. The 
 use of such words as are frequently found necessary by men 
 who write on subjects of science, have been avoided, so that any 
 person who can read can understand every sentence in the book. 
 The book contains a brief history of the earth, of man, and of his 
 
4 Preface 
 
 religions. If natural selection can be called a law,* so can sensual 
 impression under similar circumstances no less infallible. In this 
 sense the law of sensual impression implies that the impressions 
 received through the senses have inspired and revealed to man 
 all the knowledge he ever possessed. That no God or other ex- 
 ternal power ever revealed any knowledge to him or inspired him 
 to write anything. All claims to the contrary have no valid 
 foundation to rest upon, ^^tongeeateg part of the work was 
 originally written in a sort of blank verse ; this will account for 
 the style of writing. 
 
 *Those who are doubtful about the law of natural selection have never 
 extended their investigations into the field of micro-organic life. The 
 battle for life commenced at its very beginning and variability followed. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 If all the planets, stars and comets came 
 
 From neb'lous gas through the eternal flame 
 
 Of elemental law, in space not bound 
 
 By time or distance, and if it be found 
 
 That atoms are endued with gravity 
 
 And motion by which every thing we see 
 
 Throughout the earth and sky above adorned 
 
 Without the aid of mind supreme was formed, 
 
 It matters not to ants who build and fight, 
 
 And work through longest days and sleep at night. 
 
 But if our minds can higher thoughts embrace, 
 
 To view the earth once scattered through some space, 
 
 When the atoms as dust in stormy spring 
 
 Filled the heaven in wide extending ring; 
 
 The lighter gases from the rest still free, 
 
 Transparent flow along the outer sea; 
 
 And when the onward surge had made a course 
 
 By overcoming the repelling force, 
 
 The ebbing tide begat cohesive flow 
 
 Of heavy atoms to the center; so 
 
 The nucleus forms of the gathering motes, 
 
 With all the energy their mass imports. 
 
 The mighty structure now begins to rear 
 
 Through gravitations work throughout the sphere. 
 
 Rushing onward shower on showers pass 
 
 Till all the atoms are gathered on the mass 
 
 Of ever grinding matter; while on high 
 
 The liquid clouds in fierce confusion fly. 
 
 Soon at the poles and on every side 
 
 They pour upon the earth a ceaseless tide, 
 
 And when the elemental flood had drenched 
 
 The fiery orb, and in due time had quenched 
 
Introduction 
 
 The seething surface of the plastic ball, 
 
 An ocean hot extended over all. 
 
 The cooling gases as through space they roll, 
 
 Electric force now drives to both the poles; 
 
 The rapid current of the water veers, 
 
 And sinks the bottom and the land appears. 
 
 The water soon bereft of boiling glow, 
 
 And polar winds in cooling current flow, 
 
 Conditions favor and the slimy shore 
 
 Sees life animate and the waters more. 
 
 As age on age advances, seas and land 
 
 With reptiles, fish and beasts immensely grand 
 
 In size, the earth is filled, and vines and trees 
 
 Have grown apace, and near the poles the bees, 
 
 And birds with feathers nip the seeding grass 
 
 And flowering bushes as some ages pass. 
 
 Now sweeping through the sky a comet steers 
 
 And on the bosom of the main appears, 
 
 And as its smoky body seems to pass, 
 
 It leaves behind a cloud of carbon gas; 
 
 Again commotion swells the atmosphere, 
 
 The lands now sink and then again appear, 
 
 The stiffened crust is rifted and the fumes 
 
 Of fierce volcanoes rear their awful plumes. 
 
 Now after much of life had been destroyed, 
 
 And time in raising wood had been employed, 
 
 And when the sun had poured his clearing rays 
 
 Upon the earth, another comet sways 
 
 Its burning head against the orb of night, 
 
 Absorbs its moisture, burns our satellite. 
 
 Its tail of chlorine gas now strikes the main 
 
 And through the atmospheric link maintained 
 
 Much of the debris and the flowing tide 
 
 Which erstwhile gladdened our celestial bride 
 
 Is poured upon the earth on every side. 
 
 The molten matter under ocean's bed 
 
 Compressed by weight it shows its fiery head, 
 
 Through all its chimneys mounting to the sky 
 
 Through heated air the burning volumes fly. 
 
Introduction 
 
 From simple cell, through evolutions mode, 
 
 To forms complex, along the toilsome road 
 
 Of many ages, moving life had run 
 
 Through water, land and air, and now the sun 
 
 Beholds the tree of life on topmost span 
 
 Give out the bud that blossoms into man. 
 
 He is an ape in form and nothing more, 
 
 That hunger cast upon the briny shore; 
 
 His canine friend, a teacher and a slave 
 
 Devours the carcass that the surging wave 
 
 Throws on the beach; the imitative ape 
 
 By hunger prest, of the same meats partake. 
 
 Soon shell fish wholesome greet his appetite 
 
 And stone and stick resist crustacean bite. 
 
 The hands are used to gather up the dead, 
 
 Much walking thus, evolves the great biped. 
 
 The taste once formed upon the sandy beach 
 
 His lasting home is made far from the reach 
 
 Of wild ferocious beasts, and here began 
 
 The march that made the foot, hand and mind of man. 
 
 The social dog whose stomach cannot bide 
 
 A load too heavy laps the briny tide 
 
 Or blooming herbage to relieve his pain; 
 
 Man's quick perception notes, nor tries in vain; 
 
 The art of healing; but the dog was wise 
 
 Through age when apes put on the human guise. 
 
 Instinct the fruit of painful knowledge gained 
 
 Through nature's laws the canine tribe had trained; 
 
 Imitation the fruit of cunning sense, 
 
 To artifice resorts for recompense. 
 
 And so the man of medicine supposed 
 
 A charm, a fetich, in the herb reposed. 
 
 Through cunning art he frightened or he charmed. 
 
 His friends and foes when he was alarmed 
 
 While in the early state. The stick or bone 
 
 That killed a fish or brute; or the stone 
 
 In hand that crushed a creeping monster's shell 
 
 Was deemed much greater than the hand that held. 
 
Introduction 
 
 The dog was his first totem, then the stone, 
 The club he wielded then his mother's bone. 
 Those were his gods, nor had he learned to stake 
 Much thought on things, but for his stomach's sake. 
 The sun unwelcome, poured its burning ray, 
 And torpid sleep o'erpowered him through the day; 
 The watchful dog attended, and at night 
 When o'er the foaming sea the moon's fair light 
 Appeared, he spoke his welcome or his fear 
 By constant barking. When the sky was clear 
 The thick skulled biped saw the changing moon 
 With solemn awe, and close attention soon 
 Inspired love, while misconception's eye 
 Caused him to name it mother in the sky. 
 And thus the moon while on the beach they trod 
 Became their nightly friend, their first sky god. 
 Exploring soon the river's bank, his hand 
 Through forests slays the reptiles of the land. 
 Onward his course on beach and river road, 
 Still pushed by hunger to a new abode. 
 
 The burned moon is dead, and round the poles 
 Of earth the ice heaps up as on it rolls 
 With cooling air and no bending axis, 
 Till the mass of frozen fluid taxes 
 One of the poles with greater weight than the 
 Other, then the axis bends and the sea 
 Its currents change, these lash the lower lands 
 Of southern parts, till the rocky bands 
 That hold the seas apart are swept away, 
 One mighty ocean now holds supreme sway. 
 The frozen zones now warm beneath the gaze 
 Of stronger sun and the electric rays 
 Push the moving earth farther into space 
 As on the bulky north he turns his face, 
 But when the southern hemisphere is tossed 
 To face the sun, his ray in ocean's lost. 
 The tilting globe thus yearly on its run 
 Goes nearer and comes farther from the sun. 
 
Introduction 
 
 Before the polar atmosphere was chilled, 
 
 And ice and snow the greater regions filled, 
 
 Man's time was measured by the changing moon 
 
 Three days 'twas lost when near the sun, as soon 
 
 As the young moon showed its silvery light 
 
 His time began and ended on the night 
 
 It disappeared; nine hundred moons the span 
 
 Of aged life of the Primeval man. 
 
 The new moon and the full he ever cheers 
 
 As gladsome cycles in his growing years; 
 
 His days and weeks come later, but the boon 
 
 Shows that we are still servants of the moon. 
 
 When the icy blast of winter had begun 
 
 To chill him and his former foe, the sun 
 
 His friendly praise received and worship true. 
 
 His mode of counting time was altered too. 
 
 As the cooling moon had been his mother, 
 
 Now the warming sun is his sky father. 
 
 The moon was Ma in promiscuous days, 
 
 The sun is Pa because the father sways. 
 
 His thoughts and acts in varied course advance 
 
 The child of nature and of circumstance. 
 
 His arts were learned from lower forms of life 
 
 His sacred wisdom from phenomena rife. 
 
 Through the law of sensual impression, 
 
 Mind, hand and tongue, formed a crude expression 
 
 Of the things he heard and felt and saw; 
 
 Thus infantile perception made a law 
 
 Of theologic art, which ages wise 
 
 Through strength of cult and class dare not despise. 
 
 Love of power and base presumptuous art 
 
 Enslaves the brain and petrifies the heart; 
 
 Thus link by link upon the mental blind; 
 
 The chain was forged that fetters heart and mind. 
 
 Through ignorance and superstitious awe 
 
 The brave have fallen 'neath the vengeful law. 
 
 Some wiser teachers than in former age 
 
 As time advances come upon the stage; 
 
io Introduction 
 
 And for their wisdom and heroic part 
 
 In chains they're bound and gored through the heart; 
 
 The highest thought oft in the bosom's urned 
 
 For if 'twere uttered at the stake they burned. 
 
 The pride and malice of the few delude 
 
 And spreads as leaven mongst the multitude; 
 
 On rush the clannish slaves with vengeful roar, 
 
 And ev'ry land is drenched with human gore. 
 
 Thus runs the story since the world began 
 
 To times not distant of the earth and man. 
 
 The earth was flat the stellar world was glass 
 
 Till Magellan's ship around the globe did pass, 
 
 And Galileo's strong prophetic eye 
 
 Drew near the stars and opened up the sky. 
 
 The ocean now became the great highway 
 
 For hardy souls from persecution's sway, 
 
 With aspirations of a noble kind, 
 
 They staked their lives for freedom of the mind, 
 
 A land unknown had risen from the sea, 
 
 A fitting home for poor humanity; 
 
 And here the gospel new was made to say 
 
 By right divine no man should ever sway 
 
 The slogan thus gone forth, with giant stride 
 
 Of mighty genius, art and science ride, 
 
 And mount the heavens in this latter time, 
 
 With telescope, and with the sharper eye 
 
 The smallest things that live descry. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 MAN AND BEAST 
 
 Man is an intelligent animal, in terms of compliment he is 
 called a rational being. A living soul is the name that theology 
 has given him. With no knowledge or remembrance of a 
 former existence he comes into the world and he leaves it 
 against his will and consent. As a rocket sent into the upper 
 atmosphere he tries to mount the heavens on an illuminated 
 pathway, but he meets resistance every step he takes and when 
 the vital force of his nature is consumed he falls to the earth 
 a useless mass of foul decaying matter, and his name and path 
 which he may have deemed immortal are soon forgotten. 
 
 Although the individual's life is of but short duration, yet 
 he has joy, pleasure, comfort, and at times ecstatic delight. He 
 also experiences pain, sorrow, desolation and want. He is the 
 most important thing in the world to himself, but he is often 
 the least important to every one else. He is at times a mes- 
 senger of joy and happiness to his friends and countrymen; 
 at other times he is a fiend of strife, hate and destruction to 
 them. He acts and is acted upon by everything that surrounds 
 him. He is circumscribed in power and influence physically 
 and intellectually, by shortness of life, education, ignorance and 
 many other circumstances. In thought and aspiration, in desire 
 and hope his mind is unlimited by time, space, or condition in 
 life. In his mind's eye, although but a young school boy, 
 with bounding impulse he sees himself elevated to the highest 
 position in the gift of his countrymen. With that eye he looks 
 out into space far beyond the ken of the most powerful instru- 
 ment it is possible to construct, and no gilded microscope will 
 ever be invented that can reveal the ethereal forms his mind 
 is conscious of having seen. And yet he is accounted by those 
 who have used him as a football as only a moving clod or 
 animated dust. He has eyes, ears, taste, feeling and reason, 
 
 ii 
 
1 2 Modernism 
 
 yet he cannot comprehend his own blindness, meanness, cow- 
 ardice, hypocrisy, and mental and social servility. This is a 
 picture of man from a philosophical standpoint. 
 
 Now let us look at the soulless brute, with whom it is claimed 
 that man is not linked by ties of hereditary connection. In 
 what does man differ from the beasts of the forests, the insects 
 and birds of the air, the reptiles of the mire and earth, and the 
 fishes of the waters? They can feel, hear, see, smell and taste 
 with more acuteness; they can distinguish quality, color, form, 
 all varieties of odor, capacity and power in all things that 
 minister to their wants or that can injure or destroy them. 
 They have reason, memory and will power. Their process of 
 reasoning is the same. If eye, ear, or nose convince, decision 
 as quickly follows. If the thinking power be strong and the 
 senses weaker, decision halts to council with courage, fear, 
 cunning and experience. They fight and make war individually 
 and collectively, as two men or as opposing armies. They 
 play, sing, teach, caress each other and enjoy companionship. 
 Many of them labor from early dawn until the evening's twi- 
 light. Others prowl at night, and there are loafers who bask 
 in the sun or sleep in the shade until the pangs of hunger 
 compel them to look for something to eat. Many are also 
 provident in their habits; they harvest fruit, nuts and seeds, 
 and store them away for winter use. Without instruments 
 they cut down trees, build bridges, houses, cities, submarine 
 walls, dams and tunnels. They spin, weave, distill and manu- 
 facture. They have love of kind and kindred, social habits 
 and sympathy for the injured and helpless. They can love 
 and protect a friend, resent an insult and hate an enemy. They 
 rejoice and express their emotions in actions marvellously plain, 
 and are touched with sorrow in the presence of the dead. 
 
 In what then is man greater than that which he calls an 
 animal? It is not necessary to ask if he can change the order 
 of the heavens to prove that he is limited in physical and 
 intellectual power. No, we need not compare him to the 
 eternal world-constructing, life-expressing power which is mani- 
 fest in the phenomena of nature, to show how feeble he is in 
 some respects. If comparison be useful in this regard, let us 
 compare him with some of the animal forms he is familiar 
 with. Can he dig up the earth with his nose as a mole or 
 
Man and Beast 13 
 
 hog? As the beaver, cut down trees with his teeth? Distil 
 honey and manufacture wax as the bee? Weave a silken cover 
 for his own body as the worm? Spin a thread and form a net 
 as the spider? Build a hinged box from the product of his 
 stomach as the clam? Propel himself against the current of 
 a rapidly running stream as a trout? Launch himself on the 
 ocean's wave and sail upon its surface as the nautilus? Mount 
 the air and contend successfully with the stormy gale as the 
 bird? 
 
 The structural form, color and specific capacity of each of 
 these was given to it by ancestral environment. The lives of 
 their ancient "ancestors were preserved by their desire to live, 
 their ability to cope with, and accommodate themselves to all 
 the conditions of their surroundings. In their effort to sustain 
 life the pig became a ploughman and tiller of the soil. The 
 beaver a wood-feller and mason. The bee a botanist and dis- 
 tiller. The spider a spinner and designer, and the silk worm 
 a fabricator. In fact, nearly every art, even the art, of govern- 
 ment is exhibited in the homes and haunts of the various forms 
 of insect life. Therefore it is clearly manifest that man with 
 all the cunning of his hands, the keenness of his senses, the 
 genius of his mind, the power and capacity of his muscles, and 
 the loftiness of his conceit, can only partially imitate that which 
 he calls a worthless insect or dirty beast. 
 
 In what is man superior to the animal? He is more exalted 
 in special degrees of sentiment. He is more versatile in intel- 
 lectual power and genius. In the hand and foot he is the 
 master of all animals. But it was the necessities of his animal 
 progenitors which gave to him that hand and foot, and these 
 hands and feet with all their wonderful capacity have developed 
 the brain and body, and placed man in the high position he 
 now occupies as lord and master of the earth. Like character 
 of advantages and vicissitudes which gave to the horse a hoof, 
 gave to man a foot superb, with a muscular lever which has 
 given him power to obtain and maintain the upright posture 
 and to travel through all the solid parts of the earth. 
 
 If the weak and distant ancestors of man any time before 
 the ape type had become fixed in form, had been compelled 
 to make the hard or rocky desert of the earth his home and 
 permanent abode, he would now have feet like the horse, goat 
 
1 4 Modernism 
 
 or cattle. And if our apish progenitors had remained dwellers 
 in the forests, an ape he still would be and nothing more, 
 because he found safety at the seashore from the jaws of fierce 
 carnivorous beasts, where he was compelled to subsist on the 
 bounty of the tidal wave and the shelly creeper in the shallow 
 bay, and finding no trees to climb, was compelled to stay on 
 the ground continually. These were the proper conditions to 
 bring about strength of loin, full development of the foot, and 
 also the maintenance of the upright posture. And the ape 
 like man or man like ape who first put a point on a stick with 
 a sharp shell or stone or with his teeth, to use in killing fish, 
 took the first step and performed the first act, in the great 
 drama of the gradual development of that quick inventive 
 genius which has transformed the earth from a vast domain 
 of wild beasts and boundless forests, to a garden of pleasure 
 and a living monument of human glory. 
 
 But it is claimed that all this evidence of human glory is 
 but the reflex of the divine spark which is contained in the 
 human soul. If the divine spark is encompassed by the skull, 
 or located in any distinct part of the human body, that spark 
 must have been transmitted to us through our brutal ancestors, 
 not by any special act human or divine. So that, if human 
 creatures have souls so has an ape, a dog, an elephant, a horse, 
 a parrot, a bird, snake, fish and worm. In fact all things have 
 souls that contain either life or the potential elements of it, if 
 man has one.* What proof have we of this? The proofs of 
 it are that, in our appetites, senses, propensities, sentiments and 
 aspirations we are purely earthborn animals. If young animals 
 only know enough to make an effort to get something to 
 satisfy their hunger; does an infant know as much? If they 
 can taste, feel, hear and see and smell with their senses, can 
 any human being do more? No; the powers of his senses 
 are feeble and almost impotent when compared with some in 
 the animal kingdom. In all the propensities and passions how 
 much is man greater than the brute? If the tiger and other 
 carnivorous animals will destroy life to appease their hunger, 
 man also will destroy even human life for the same purpose. 
 Yes, human life he will destroy for a mere insult, or to get 
 
 *This is not an argument against the existence of the soul. 
 
Man and Beast 15 
 
 possession of a small amount of money or property. He will 
 kill his fellow man for a mere difference of opinion. 
 
 Every organized war that has taken place in the world, is 
 a demonstration of the fact that man is as bloodthirsty, as 
 savage, and as inconsiderate of the sufferings of the wounded, 
 the tears and sorrowful bereavement of fathers, mothers, broth- 
 ers, sisters, wives, children and friends, as the most ferocious 
 beast in the wide domain of animals.* There is no base form 
 of fraud, cunning duplicity or treachery that any brute was ever 
 addicted to, that man has not only equaled, but excelled him 
 in. And even in the higher sentiments as love, friendship, care 
 of the young and helpless, self-sacrifice, also fidelity and hon- 
 esty, man is not superior to some animals. 
 
 Man is indebted to his animal ancestors for his great mechan- 
 ical genius. From the ape he has received the faculty of imita- 
 tion. The ape has also bestowed upon him the hand which 
 has enabled him to perform the work, mechanical manipulations 
 and action of other animals without which his faculty of imita- 
 tion would not have been any more use to him than it is to 
 the parrot. Let us see what this power of imitation has done 
 for him. If he cuts down trees for the purpose of building 
 a house or bridge it is because he first saw a beaver do that 
 kind of work. If he builds himself a hut it is because he saw 
 insects employed at such labor. He merely tried to construct 
 a larger domicile on the same principle and style and of like 
 materials. Has he made a net to catch fish or anything else 
 with? It is because he first saw a spider weave a net to catch 
 flies and other insects. If it had not been for the spider, it 
 is doubtful if the human family would have discovered the 
 principle on which are fabricated the various materials from 
 which our garments are made. If man had never seen a clam, 
 it is possible that he would never have known the use of a 
 hinge. He even tried to make himself look like a tiger, and 
 a leopard by besmearing his face and body with juice and 
 colored earths. 
 
 With a different aspiration there are many now whom it 
 would be very ungallant to rebuke, who would not deign to 
 appear in public without a fair complexion and an artificial 
 
 *This does not apply to man under all circumstances. 
 
1 6 Modernism 
 
 rose-blush on their cheeks. So it appears that man's most 
 useful teachers and inspirers were the animals that surrounded 
 him. If they sang and made delightful music, that suggested 
 and he imitated. If they built houses or in any other way or 
 manner employed themselves at any kind of useful labor, he 
 merely tried to imitate their work. Wherever man was found 
 in his primitive home, if nature there is poor in vocal bird and 
 constructing animal, there is man found poverty stricken in 
 voice and in mechanical taste. Where nature was strong, rich 
 and beautiful, there was he found in full harmony with his 
 environments. If all these things be admitted, yet it is claimed 
 that man has aspirations which could not have been derived 
 from insects, birds, brutes, or any other animal as an heirloom. 
 This claim is as full of error as any yet put forth. Man is 
 an epitome of all life that has existed on this earth. He is the 
 most perfect life-breathing conglomerate structure in the world. 
 His desires, hopes, aspirations, acts and feelings, are but the 
 manifestations of the demand of the animals of whom he is 
 constructed. In other words, it is to satisfy the demands of 
 all the species who have their characters added and their modes 
 of action in the building up of the human structure that every 
 effort, hope and aspiration of the heart and brain has been 
 directed, felt .and expressed. The insects and others who lay 
 up provisions for the rainy season, have transmitted the desire 
 to us, to do the same. Those who make no attempt to provide 
 for the stormy day, have bequeathed the inclination to us to 
 spend as we go, and gather that only which we need to-day. 
 Our wish to be upon the water and to plunge into the foaming 
 breakers, comes from the fish who still live within us. The 
 desire to gaze upon beautiful colors has been transmitted to 
 us from many birds, insects, fishes and some others. Every 
 thing that feels, desires to live, and why not we? Yet man 
 has not attained the great age of parrot, elephant or whale; 
 nor of some creeping reptiles. If man is vain, desirous of 
 fame, applause and commendation from his friends and fellow- 
 men, that desire has been transmitted to him from all the higher 
 races that have lived. If man be friendly, self-sacrificing and 
 benevolent, it is that the bird, dog, ape and other animals have 
 bequeathed those qualities to him. Is he a reasoner? So is 
 a parrot, a fox, a dog, a monkey and an elephant. Can he 
 
Man and Beast 1 7 
 
 imitate sounds with his voice? Cannot the parrot and mocking 
 bird do the same? Can he imitate the pathological conditions, 
 the passions, and sportive and social actions of man and beast? 
 So can a chimpanzee. The carrier pigeon who cleaves the air 
 with its wings, and glides through space with the swift velocity 
 of a hot descending meteor, has given us the desire to follow 
 his example. To fulfil this desire and aspiration, man has 
 utilized the horse, the railroad car, the steamboat, balloon and 
 automobile. It is only in the telegraph that he has outshipped 
 the speed of the bird. The aspiration to soar above the din, 
 smoke and impure atmosphere of thronging cities and to be 
 alone among the gilded clouds in the pure ethereal expanse, 
 has been transmitted to us by the singing, soaring, skylark. If 
 there be an everliving and all prevailing intelligence, that silent 
 and unseen architect of worlds has manifested its genius, power 
 and capacity to mankind throu'gh his natural teachers the 
 vegetable and animal forms of earth, and the sun, moon and 
 stars of the heavens. 
 
 These facts need no demonstration. It was truly said that 
 nothing comes from nothing. Therefore every emotion and 
 aspiration of the heart and brain springs from something. This 
 is no mystery when we understand that man is a structure that 
 it has taken ages and ages to build up, and that in the building 
 of this human edifice through the slow and painful process of 
 evolution, that every species that preceded his advent, con- 
 tributed the strongest element of its character to the erection 
 of this animal temple in which vegetable and animal life are 
 embodied and represented. 
 
 If these external shadows do not bring conviction to the 
 doubtful mind, let us look into the man himself, and see of 
 what material he is made. Now view the embryonic infant with 
 the eye of a true anatomist. First appears the human germ 
 of life in substance form and properties the same as in other 
 animals. A microscopic cell. Then a fish and the character 
 of reptile and a bird. The change continues upward to carni- 
 vorous cat or dog; and then the ape appears and after shedding 
 its downy coat of hair it comes into the world a weak and puny 
 infant. After birth it is a sucker and then a creeping thing. 
 It squeals, croaks, and chirps and finally bleats like a young 
 kid or lamb. If by an omnipotent fiat, the first man was ere- 
 
1 8 Modernism 
 
 ated perfect in mind and body without hereditary connection 
 with any other form of life, why should we have rudimentary 
 muscles in our feet and legs like those of an ape? In our 
 back like a bird? In our eyes like a cat? In our ears like a 
 dog? In our wrists and ankles like a squirrel? A useless sack 
 at the end of our intestines? Rudimentary muscles in our skin 
 like all furbearing animals? And a tail like any monkey though 
 it be quite short? There is not one of these muscles or other 
 appendages that is not an injury to us. They are the seat and 
 cause of many of the diseases that human life is subject to. 
 If man were not the offspring of a whole series of animal 
 ancestors, he would not have or possess these fragmentary heir- 
 looms. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 MAN AND GOD 
 
 As the earth and its inhabitants had taught the savage useful 
 lessons, so the heavens stimulated the dawning spark of intel- 
 lectual light and slowly developed the poet's faculty of imag- 
 ination. Although its power has enslaved the mind to error 
 and deep and darksome ignorance and fear, it nourished the 
 budding power of speech in the almost speechless biped whose 
 feeble course now leads onward through all the realm of nature. 
 By the law of sensual impression we will trace his pathway 
 through his many stages of development, from the lowest to 
 the highest limits. In the misty track of time now traceless, 
 before the earth had become the abode of winter's chilling blast 
 and moving seas of ice, traveling here on the shores of some 
 of the ancient seas was a creature who all the prophetic attributes 
 of a human being possessed. He was a fisherman. No other 
 profession, trade or religion had he. Aspiration, desire or am- 
 bition had he not that was not felt by some other animals. 
 Too luminous was the sun and its heat too intense for him 
 in his low estate to regard it other than a great devouring 
 demon of fire. 
 
 As most of his mammalian contemporaries, he was a prowler 
 by night, and slept during the heat of the day. When the 
 shade of evening began to fall, and the cooling wind flowed 
 in over the sea, restoring muscular power to animate nature, 
 his drowsy limbs he stretched then sallied forth to gather his 
 nightly provender. At that stage of his existence he lived 
 principally on shell fish. After satisfying the angry craving 
 of his stomach he sat on the sea beach and gazed with bewild- 
 ering emotion on the scene of glory spread out on the star- 
 bespangled heavens, whilst the falling dew bathed and refreshed 
 his body. The changeful moon, sailing silently beneath the 
 stars he watched with constant interest and ever-increasing won- 
 
 19 
 
20 Modernism 
 
 der. But as time rolled on, slowly he began to note that many 
 shell fish, the choicest of his food, grew fat and well flavored 
 as the luminary of night increased from new moon to full, and 
 when the sun arose, he saw that every star grew dim, and 
 every other light in heaven went out, and to deep water the 
 fish all fled or hid beneath the rocks and stones. Reasoning 
 from what he saw and felt, the sun was a demon powerful and 
 bad. Having begun to gain some knowledge of the heavens 
 the various changes which occur in the illuminated face of the 
 moon to him became the most august subject of cogitation. 
 Why not begin to think and chatter when he saw its increase 
 brought him longer brighter light, and a plentitude of food? 
 And its decrease lingering darkness and a scant supply of 
 bivalves, lobsters, shrimps and crabs. 
 
 It does not require the wisdom of a philosopher to demon- 
 strate that the moon was the most interesting object in the 
 universe to primeval man. But should it be asked why it was 
 the most conspicuous, the answer is plain that, in contradis- 
 tinction of all other objects seen, it was continually changing 
 both as to its size and form and also in its time and place of 
 rising. Man's first cognizance of events such as these arose 
 from his perfect power of observance, and the natural habit of 
 reasoning by comparison. In this regard the moon in its 
 monthly course suggested to him the notion of time, because 
 as an observing animal he could generalize in a degree, and 
 he incidentally connected its various changes with his own life 
 interests. Now every new moon became an epoch in his life, 
 and was soon hailed with joyous greetings and ejaculations of 
 delight. If with these circumstances the tiny crescent moon 
 became the sign for the beginning of a period whose intervening 
 days and nights were not known or numbered, so later on, the 
 full moon as it arose was hailed with joy, and as it sank behind 
 the western mountains they kissed their hands as to a good 
 and generous friend departing. 
 
 Simple as were these manifestations of joy and friendly grati- 
 tude, yet as time moved on and man developed to a higher 
 state they grew into festivals observed by every nation Egyp- 
 tian, Greek, Hebrew and Roman. All the ancient tribes and 
 people who gravitated from the low savage state of the primeval 
 
Man and God 21 
 
 man celebrated the feasts of new and full moon, with convenial 
 recreation or some religious ceremony. 
 
 But let us hug the shore and mark the foot prints of the 
 biped struggling upward. Now he numbers, counts the even- 
 ings, first from new moon up to full moon, then from full 
 moon down to no moon, when the silvery orb of night was 
 buried in the burning rays of Saturn, only one of day. Yet 
 the numbers were fatiguing; few their import grasped or tried 
 to. A heap of shells was all that was seen by the naked herd 
 of thick skulls grinning at the first magician, seer, or prophet 
 that the world knew. But what meaning have these shells 
 now? Let him try to solve the problem. First he numbers 
 all his fingers, then his toes are fumbled over, yet the heap 
 is not all numbered. He knows no other means of counting, 
 but he must the knot unravel or leave the mystery unsolved. 
 At last a comrade sitting by him looking at the shells un- 
 counted, thinks about his eyes and ears and his nose, all things 
 useful, two ears, two eyes, two nostrils and his mouth, and 
 with finger pointing at them tells the seer to observe, who 
 in joyful mood now counts them, thus the nights were all 
 numbered that the moon on earth was seen, and as the sun 
 no favor granted its time was reckoned not at all. But three 
 nights were passing while in gloomy darkness the stars alone 
 were seen, but these little twinkling lights helped the plastic 
 eye. They had seen with sorrow the shrunken form of the 
 moon departing from their view, and not appearing again till 
 the third night after its disappearance. Thus their god did 
 die and rose again the third night after its departure. 
 
 This is foundation for the story that a god once died and 
 arose to life again the third night after he was buried. The 
 feast of new moon celebrated throughout the ancient world that 
 event, until changes that will be related here destroyed the 
 memory of the cause assigned for man's first good and kindly 
 god or sky mother. There was an awe-inspiring phenomenon 
 which frequently occurred that filled their minds with terror 
 and dismay. Isolated as these moon worshippers were from 
 much of the world, with a desert of water in front of them, 
 and in the distance behind them, the dark towering forests 
 from whence the roar and cry of beasts of prey oft reached their 
 ears, with whom they had not learned to cope, who can con- 
 
22 Modernism 
 
 ceive or who can understand, even faintly the wild dismay 
 that an eclipse of the moon caused to the early human inhabi- 
 tants of the earth? Not having a particle of knowledge of 
 cause, nor the least conception of the stability of anything in 
 the universe; seeing death and destruction overtake everything 
 about them; seeing their companions killed by the tooth of 
 reptiles or dying from exposure or from the effect of food or 
 habit, they were impressed with the idea that everything they 
 loved or that ministered to their happiness was liable to be 
 annihilated any moment. When the shadow of the earth en- 
 veloped a large part of the heavens in smoky darkness, and 
 from the murky background as a huge monster with open jaws, 
 it stuck in its head and seized the edge of the moon and 
 gradually swallowed it, their hearts were rent with anguish 
 for the fate of their sky mother or ma, but when that hor- 
 rible apparition disgorged the unwholesome morsel, and the 
 moon shone forth in all its accustomed beauty, no power of 
 human expression can paint the pranks of joy and thankful- 
 ness exhibited. 
 
 Thus the moon appeared to perform all those offices which 
 primitive man thought of greatest value to him. It was his 
 lamp of heaven whose light suited best the structure of his eye, 
 in its then plastic state. It swelled the surging breakers which 
 dashed the luscious fish on the sandy beach. It was also his 
 clock and storm signal. It was the oracle that proclaimed his 
 feasts and fasts, and that taught him first to mark a course 
 through the starry firmament. Was it not natural, therefore, 
 that he should on the moon bestow attributes divine and the 
 grateful homage due a loving mother? Although the progress 
 of the man who lived at the seashore and no father knew was 
 slow; yet wherever propitious circumstances prevailed, it was, 
 no doubt continual. But the time finally came when not only 
 the seashores, but the banks of all large rivers that flowed into 
 the seas, had felt the tread of the human foot. We will not 
 discuss any of the several theories of eminent philosophers, 
 regarding the cause that produced the atmospheric disturb- 
 ance which resulted in covering more than half of both hemi- 
 spheres with a moving sea of ice. As we recognize no teacher 
 of science infallible, we must be allowed the privilege of hold- 
 ing to the views already advanced, that a comet's influence 
 
Man and God 23 
 
 produced the glacial periods. Suffice it to say, that long before 
 the ice age began, it found the simple growing fisherman and 
 hunter on the shores near a northern sea. 
 
 As self-preservation is the first law of nature he gradually 
 began his march toward the equator. All those in Europe 
 pierced the forests and began to battle for their lives against 
 nature, beasts of prey and every other obstacle that lay in their 
 path. Many fell by the wayside and were devoured body and 
 bones. A few preserved their lives for a time in caves. As 
 they fell back along the banks of rivers and at the base of 
 mountains, they finally found themselves among herds of peace- 
 ful cattle. Slowly pushing to the south, as the snow and ice 
 advanced they covered their bodies with the warm hides of 
 those animals, and by building huts for shelter during the 
 inclement season to hide them from the rigorous blasts of rain 
 and snow, and the piercing air, they finally emerged from the 
 dreariness of the north, having for their companions a number 
 of these useful herbivorous animals, and so changed in personal 
 appearance, mode of living, habits and physical constitution, 
 that their ancestral race features were almost obliterated.* They 
 \vere now shepherds and had been compelled by force of cir- 
 cumstances to change their opinions regarding some of the 
 phenomena of nature. The chaste cold moon had been of little 
 value to them as a god. With all the coquetry of a silvery 
 goddess, she lavished her most benignant smiles on their great- 
 est enemy, the bleak and monotonous desert of snow. So losing 
 faith in her as a comforter and benefactor, they turned their 
 attention to the sun, with whom they had become somewhat 
 enamored, and began to watch its movement with the eye of 
 a natural philosopher. Through its yearly course they saw it 
 wind its way in a spiral course through the heavens, from its 
 highest point of ascension in the north, to its point of lowest 
 descent in the south, and they noted that as it went southward 
 its heat moderated; the atmosphere became cooler and sharper, 
 and vegetation gradually yielded up its color and strength, 
 passing from life to death; the warm showers ceased, being 
 replaced by those that were cold and disagreeable, and the 
 
 *The branch of the human family that passed through this experience 
 had got as far north as the Baltic Sea by way of the Atlantic. 
 
24 Modernism 
 
 earth was frequently carpeted at night and morning with frozen 
 crystals. 
 
 Then they saw the starry heavens shut out from their view 
 by heavy clouds drifting from the north, the space around 
 them filled with commotion, and soon the earth was locked in 
 the embrace of winter, with its bridges of ice and banks of 
 snow. Anxiously and solemnly they watched the sun until It 
 had reached the point in the heavens where its journey to the 
 south ended. Then they saw it slowly wind its way back 
 to the north again until it arrived at that point in the northern 
 heavens from whence it began to decline. They noted that 
 as the sun ascended from the south, its rays gradually grew 
 strong and kinder; the inhospitable atmosphere, with heat 
 slowly became tempered, rain and mist began to penetrate the 
 ice-bound lakes and rivers, the snow-capped mountains and 
 the forests. The banks of rivers and softly meandering brooks 
 were overflowed by melting ice. The earth which through the 
 dreary winter moons had been petrified by frost, received the 
 welcome shower and gladsome heat, and soon bade adieu to 
 the shadow of departing winter. Spring now opened with its 
 rippling streams and ever-changing breezes. The bosom of the 
 earth began to throb, the grass pierced the casing of the soil, 
 and the fields in inimitable green were dyed. Trees, bushes, 
 and shrubs put forth their buds and blossoms; every animal 
 with hoof and horn careered and tossed its heels; the birds 
 began to twitter, the frogs croaked, and man casting off his 
 winter garments of undressed skins, plunged into the water 
 or rolled in the ash pile to purify and cleanse his body from 
 the vermin and filth that had accumulated during the winter. 
 
 Summer then rushed in with the hum and noise of bee and 
 locust, the chirp of cricket, the song of bird, the glare of sun, 
 and the low murmuring bizz of shooting vine, stretching twig 
 and opening petal. The earth now seethed and the air was 
 laden with the motions, vibrations and odor of vegetable and 
 animal life. Man saw and noted all these things. He saw 
 that the ascending sun brought life, health, joy and beauty to 
 everything on the earth, and that the air was filled with fra- 
 grance and inspiration. And he noted also, that the declining 
 sun brought withering death to vegetation, the absence of insect 
 and vocal bird, stillness in the field and forest, and cold and 
 
Man and God 25 
 
 hunger to himself and his animal companions. And as he 
 saw that all these changes on earth were closely connected 
 with the apparent movement of the sun in the heavens, is it 
 any wonder that the sun should become the object of greatest 
 interest to him and that he should call it his sky father and 
 learn to worship that great orb of light as the supreme one? 
 It is said in another part of this book that the moon first taught 
 primitive man to mark a course through the stars above. 
 Eventually he must have given names to the several groups 
 of stars he saw while watching the moon. These were some 
 time after called constellations. He had an articulate language. 
 He had given names to all the beasts and birds that were his 
 friends and enemies. Therefore in naming the stars, he gave 
 them the names of things that he was familiar with. Bears, 
 goats, dogs, asses, reptiles, lions, birds and fish. The heavens 
 became a great mirror that reflected all the animal forms of 
 earth that man respected or abhorred. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 MAN AND THE EARTH 
 
 As we have in a detached manner related a tale that has not 
 always been very harmonious, let us take a circumspective view 
 over the ground we have attempted to cover, observing the 
 law of sensual impression ourselves as a guiding light. Whether 
 atoms of all substance in a solid state and indivisible ether, or 
 matter in a gaseous state and ether, were used in the con- 
 struction and operation of all the organized bodies in our solar 
 system, the result would be the same in constructing or pro- 
 ducing a globe such as the earth was before a stratified carpet 
 had been laid upon its solid granite floor. Therefore we may 
 conclude that when all the substance that had been held in a 
 gaseous condition in the atmosphere through the fiery heat 
 radiated from the molten matter of the globe had been deposited 
 as slime and ashes on the cooling surface, and the earth had 
 become cool enough at both poles to permit water to remain 
 permanently at these favorable localities, the volume of water as 
 it increased in size took on a circular movement. This move- 
 ment of the water carried the ashes and heavy liquids that 
 had settled at the bottom, to the outside of the pool. Gradually 
 a little embankment was formed there. In this manner several 
 small ridges were formed as the pool increased in size, and as 
 the force of the water increased all of the inner ridges being 
 soft were carried to the outside. Now we have quite a strong 
 ridge of heavy material. Some part of this ridge is not as 
 high as the rest of it and the water overflows at this point and 
 it gradually cuts a gap through the ridge, running out like a 
 little river first, then it begins to spread over the surface. As 
 the volume of water increases in the pool, in going through 
 the gap in the ridge, it gradually increases the size of the gap. 
 If the pool is five hundred miles across in all directions, the 
 ridge would be over fifteen hundred miles in circumference. If 
 26 
 
Man and the Earth 27 
 
 three gaps had been cut through the ridge, five hundred miles 
 apart, at the time the ridge would be all cut away, six other 
 ridges starting from the circular ridge would be formed, three 
 running southeast and three running southwest, forming three 
 triangle shaped seas, the base of each opening on the polar 
 sea, the southern points at the south of the Caspian, at the 
 southern end of Spain, and at the south of Mexico. 
 
 In the southern hemisphere nearly similar conditions pre- 
 vailed. The earth rolled on through space accepting every- 
 thing that came to it without a word of compliment or reproof. 
 Garments it received of many colors that in the weaving and 
 making each new garment, ages of time were consumed. When 
 it had worn out the first garment, two very simple forms of 
 life, one vigorous and full of activity, the other more dignified, 
 strutting slowly through the water, remarked to his compan- 
 ion in language telepathic that " the world must now be finished 
 as no higher form of life can possibly be created than our- 
 selves." The stout one wandered far e'er night set in, and 
 while they slept the bottom of the sea rose up and morning 
 found the proud one high and dry on land where parching 
 sun soon baked him to a crust, the strong one floundering in 
 the mud where some water lodged fought for life and making 
 of his fins a kind of legs and feet survived. It was very hard 
 at first, the fat fell off his bones but meeting others of his kind 
 amidst the mire his life was cheered and from his seed many 
 species grew. And one of these in after ages with jaws and 
 body of enormous size looking over the land and in the water 
 said to his cousin with leather wings, in telepathic tongue, 
 " Who can stand against me on the land or in the water? For 
 me the world was made 'tis plain." A great barrier north of the 
 shallow lake and low plain on and in which he sported, trem- 
 bled, the earth groaned, and the barrier sunk. A mighty sea 
 of limy water covered and buried him forever. The one with 
 leather wings took flight and rested not until he found a tree 
 to rest upon. Faint and over weary now he looked around 
 and saw some of his kindred who had learned to move their 
 bodies over the slimy earth where feet were useless sinking 
 into the mire. 
 
 The earth now changed its aspect, and the one with leather 
 wings generated many broods with feathers of every hue. With 
 
28 Modernism 
 
 insects now many lands were filled that gained dominion of 
 the land and air. The leaf and bush and herb were gathered 
 by the reaping jaws of armies as numerous as the separate 
 grains of sand at any sea shore. From the eternal clatter of 
 their jaws and feet arose a noise, a dire resounding rasping 
 sound. But through some natural favors a few lands which 
 had been separated from the home of those vile pests by clime 
 or sea permitted forms of life to live beyond their time in 
 nature's growth toward a high development. But every thing 
 that lived and had not natural resisting covering, either became 
 pachyderms or fell to the earth from the ceaseless stings or 
 puny crashing jaws of insects. As in this tiresome time there 
 was no peace for those with tender skin upon the ground be- 
 neath the glare of torrid sun, the cooler air of mountain tops 
 and polar zones became the home of all who did not abide in 
 trees. Of these the anthropoid apes were the wisest animals 
 on earth, but not so strong as those now living. The high- 
 lands and the mountains became their uncontested empire, but 
 the strife for food and territorial dominion drove many to the 
 sea shore. The ape was the most imitative animal that lived. 
 The action of one animal in the presence of another is one 
 of the modes of language by which an observing animal is 
 taught. The dog who is not particular regarding the food he 
 eats is at the sea shore eating dead mollusks and he smashes 
 the thin shell of live ones and separates the food from the 
 the shell. The hungry ape observes the act and imitates the 
 action. The taste for blood he had not acquired and the 
 bloodless luscious meat of the mollusk soon became a fascina- 
 tion that held him to the sea shore for ages. 
 
 All the seas except the polar seas, contained a large amount 
 of lime. The atmosphere being hot and the seas not cold, 
 the apes from wading into the water as the waves dashed the 
 mollusks on the shore soon began to feel the luxury of the 
 lower temperature of the water, and from wading began to 
 bathe and spend a large amount of time in the water. At 
 that time the ape was a nocturnal animal. The fierceness of 
 the sun's rays was too blinding for him to see advantageously, 
 so after it had set in the west and until it arose in the morning 
 he was full of life and activity. Although the feeble light of the 
 stars and planets aided him in a very small degree, complete 
 
Man and the Earth 29 
 
 darkness caused them to huddle together in silence. That was 
 the time that their invisible foes were most powerful. But 
 the moment the moon arose the feeling of security returned, 
 and they began to feed. The period of its presence each night 
 was a period of unalloyed delight. The homes of the four 
 families of the anthropoid apes were near the equator. The 
 gibbon and orang in southeastern Asia, the chimpanzee and 
 gorilla lived on the western side of Africa. 
 
 The four families of the anthropoid apes had the same ex- 
 perience. The constant bathing in the sea of lime water 
 eventually destroyed the reproductive power of the outer skin 
 to sustain the growth of hair, so these apes and all other animals 
 that bathed in the lime water seas, estuaries and lakes lost the 
 power of growing hair on their bodies and the skin which in 
 the natural state had been soft assumed the appearance of shells 
 or scales. The offsprings of the dogs that were the first com- 
 panions of primitive man on the sea shore are hairless. A 
 few of them are still alive in India and Egypt.* 
 
 The chimpanzee on the western shore of Africa wandered 
 south around the continent and north as far as Zanzibar. The 
 gorilla going last into the water north of the home of the 
 chimpanzee wandered up and down not far from his forest 
 home. Every river that stopped the passage of the chimpanzee, 
 its beach was tramped to find a place to cross. His arms were 
 shortened by disuse and holding on them against his breast 
 many mollusks. All ape men did the same. The orang near 
 the equator had two distinct families, one wandered south to 
 Australia, which was unseparated from Asia. The other family 
 followed the Pacific north, but the branch of the family that 
 wandered south clung to their native beach. The fourth ape 
 the gibbon of these there were two families of many shades 
 of skin. They were the most agile and intelligent of all the 
 apes. They took to the beach the first and had spread on the 
 beach of India from its eastern boundary. They used both 
 sea and land for a long time. Their arms were not so long 
 as are the gibbons now. They also had the best hands and 
 feet to apply to any kind of useful service. Although the 
 
 *If this suggestion proves incorrect, we will have to fall back on the 
 theory that it was an adaptation against disease; such as dermatitis ex- 
 foliativa or other skin disease. 
 
30 Modernism 
 
 weakest of all the primates, they were naturally the best qualified 
 to walk erect and develop physically and mentally. And by 
 not giving up the land entirely they continued for a time to 
 live on a mixed diet when handy. 
 
 It was a long time before any pedestrian advancement began 
 other than such straggling adventures as the most fearless and 
 independent, who always court danger rather than be in the 
 midst of constraining communities. Wherever a flock, a herd, 
 or a group of any kind of beasts or birds exist, they are under 
 constraining influence of some kind. The law of restraint that 
 all birds and beasts learn to obey under penalty of punish- 
 ment, is the decalog that experience has taught all the tribes 
 of the earth. In Africa and Asia near the equator, where these 
 bipeds were near the sea side, during the nighttime when their 
 stomachs were filled with shell fish, they sat in the sand while 
 the falling dew bathed and cooled their bodies. When the 
 eastern sky was painted red they sought the shades of the 
 bushes and covered their bodies with sand and very quickly 
 went to sleep. When the sun was sinking in the west the dog 
 who taught the hairy biped the luxury of a mollusk diet, sees 
 the crescent moon and barks. He barks and barks or bays 
 the moon. The bipeds are now aroused. They see the dog 
 looking at the moon, and still continues barking. They look 
 at the dog and then at the moon and utter inarticulate groans, 
 and point at the dog and the moon. Night after night the 
 same scene occurs. They question each other with nods and 
 groans and gestures. The question they ask is this: Why is 
 the bow wow bow wowing the light maker? 
 
 All animals have the faculty of speech or language and of 
 imitation in a greater or lesser degree. The construction of 
 the brain w r here imitation and vocal sense are poor limit the 
 power of speech. The young of every species imitate their 
 parents. A young robin taken from the nest and fed by hand 
 can be taught to whistle short tunes. The parrot can imitate 
 any sound it hears. Man's first language was an attempt to 
 imitate the language of the birds and beasts of his environ- 
 ment. He named them according to the sounds they uttered. 
 When they made no sounds some peculiarity of their form was 
 gestured. The gesture is the parent of sign language, writing 
 and printing. By it the actions of people who lived many 
 
Man and the Earth 3 1 
 
 thousand years ago can be understood. Their deeds live in 
 the gestures imprinted on clay, stone or short-lived parchment 
 which the writers wished might be transcribed. Their atten- 
 tion now being called by the dog to the moon, the other inhabi- 
 tants of the sky, as seen by night were gradually discovered. 
 Not the attention of all, only the attention of the most observ- 
 ing and the most intelligent. The herd were taught to see and 
 understand what the greatest saw and understood. 
 
 When the island of Ceylon was a part of the mainland of 
 India, the branch of the gibbon family that had made their 
 abode there for a long time, through the adventures of some 
 of them who had traveled quite a distance west and returned 
 on several occasions to a place where there was always a great 
 abundance of shell fish, this place became a sort of news depot 
 or center of information. The worship of the moon became 
 a systemized religion there. It was thought that the moon 
 was born like human bipeds a little thing at first, and lived 
 to be full grown at full moon, and then began to grow old and 
 finally was lost or died and was reborn again. That it lived 
 as many night as one of them had fingers, toes, mouth, ears, 
 eyes and nostrils. But as they had discovered a cave that had 
 an opening at both ends where a person could go in one end 
 and out of the other. This settled the problem as to where 
 the moon went when they could no longer see it. It went into 
 a cave in the sky and came out of the other end when it was 
 reborn. Being a person, their sky Ma, it became an exemplar 
 whose life or path should be followed. So they made it a part 
 of their religion to be reborn as their sky Ma was. When they 
 did not have a cave of the natural kind they made a little 
 one just large enough for a person to go through. This was 
 a necessary religious rite. On all their travels they always 
 used caves wherever they could find them. As their god 
 was born and died in a cave they tried to follow her example. 
 
 It had taken an age of mental development to arrive at this 
 conception of a religious system. The dog first called their 
 attention to the moon as something to look at. It was the 
 changeful character of the moon that attracted the dog's atten- 
 tion. The dog is a very friendly and intelligent animal. He 
 never could get on friendly terms with any one who would 
 go through so many changes in his appearance. So he tried 
 
3 2 Modernism 
 
 to drive the moon out of the sky by barking at it. But these 
 changes of the phases of the moon made the moon so different 
 from everything else in the sky to man that it became a matter 
 to think about and also to talk about. And when they had 
 come to regard it as a person who ruled the night, they gave 
 it the credit of causing the dew to fall on their warm bodies, 
 and to make the nights cool; to give them light and plenty of 
 shell fish, thus performing several offices that were very useful 
 to them. They had observed that the mother performs very 
 useful offices for the child. She feeds it, watches it and pro- 
 tects it. She defends it against everybody and everything. 
 She caresses it and plays with it. She manifests great kindness 
 to it on all occasions, and expresses emotions of love for it 
 above all things else on the sea beach. These manifestations 
 of usefulness on the part of the mother to her child in con- 
 tradistinction to the exhibition of unalloyed greed and selfish- 
 ness, constituted her an object of devotion. And as the moon 
 was the only natural object that compared favorably with the 
 mother, it was called the sky Ma; the good demon. 
 
 The idea of goodness as understood by all of our primitive 
 ancestors, was first suggested by discovering something that 
 was useful to them or that helped them. When the sun arose 
 every object in the sky was blotted out, and its rays being too 
 strong for them to see or bear the heat, it seemed to them 
 that it was useless although most powerful, so they called it 
 a bad demon. Originally the term demon embraced every- 
 thing that has since been denominated spirits, deities and gods. 
 Some were good, others were bad, according to their supposed 
 usefulness or uselessness. The good ones were loved; and 
 exhibition of their love was displayed in some manner. The 
 bad ones were hated but feared, and propitiated to try to make 
 them good or merciful. The shadow of the earth as seen at 
 an eclipse of the moon was the most abhorred demon of the 
 sky. The comet appearing in the form of a serpent was called 
 Python after the largest reptile known to man. All these had 
 a place in man's most ancient system of theology. The moon 
 was the good demon, most of the others were bad. This theo- 
 logical system spread along the sea shores and up some of 
 the rivers. Where it was unknown among the people, they 
 knew nothing of celestial theology. 
 
Man and the Earth 33 
 
 The father being unknown for a long time, and being unrecog- 
 nized by either mother or child as a blood relation, he 
 occupied no position of honor or respect in that most primitive 
 society. This family of the- offsprings of the gibbon spread 
 along the sea coast from the mouth of the river Ganges to the 
 Indus where they found it necessary to tramp up quite a dis- 
 tance to find a place to cross on rafts. Returning on the other 
 side they continued to wander along the beach until after 
 many years the offsprings of those who had elaborated the simple 
 recognization of the moon as a benevolent person, had arrived 
 on the Mediterranean near the mouth of the Nile. This was 
 the first wave of the gibbon family. A large part of the second 
 wave of the gibbons advanced from 'the Indus, when they had 
 come to the Red sea which was at that time an inland sea, 
 stretching from the base of the Lebanon mountains to the 
 straits of Babelmandeb, which were closed. Here the first 
 wave of the gibbons crossed to the western side of the Red 
 sea, but the second wave wandered along the eastern side of 
 the sea toward the north. The near relatives of the founders 
 of moon worship as a system, that were on the east side of the 
 river Indus, when they advanced along the river afterwards 
 they had to contend with beasts and reptiles of all descrip- 
 tion. Here was a nation of the offsprings of the gibbon, 
 stretching from Ceylon along the sea shores to both sides of 
 the Red sea. The first or advance guard had reached the Medi- 
 terranean, the second had reached as far north as Mecca. When 
 the last body of the gibbon moved to the Indus they left 
 behind a small branch of the people who were too much at- 
 tached to their homes to leave it. The orang family occupied 
 all the equatorial land comprised now in the East Indian islands, 
 the north of Australia and what has been lately called Lemuria, 
 which connected with the south of South America. They also 
 occupied the sea shore of all lands east of India and south of 
 Burma to its eastern boundary, and the shore of the Pacific 
 up to the tropic of Cancer. 
 
 The theological system that the gibbons were the founders 
 of, continued to be their guide in religious matters. Incidents 
 that occurred from time to time, suggested certain maxims and 
 customs that had all the force of law. When a custom had 
 been thoroughly grafted on their habits, that custom became 
 
34 Modernism 
 
 so deeply rooted that it produced a natural desire to observe 
 it. They had no knowledge of any natural phenomenon, and 
 therefore they were helpless slaves to all kinds of superstitious 
 notions. As the rising sun immediately ended the night no 
 matter in what part of the sky the moon was, this intensified 
 their hatred of the sun and caused them to think that the sun 
 swallowed the host of heaven or sky children. From which 
 idea, the oldest time god Saturn, was said to have devoured 
 his children as tyrant of the sky. Among some of the incidents 
 that had occurred to these bipeds as they wandered along, when 
 the moon was casting its silvery beams on the earth, they saw 
 their shadows. These shadows were for a long time a mystery, 
 but the medicine women or men who were the infallible oracles 
 and possessors of all knowledge and wisdom, declared that 
 everything had a double nature. That the material nature could 
 be seen at all times if it were not too dark, but that the other 
 immaterial nature could only be seen when the moon was shin- 
 ing. This immaterial nature was called the shade.* When one 
 was asleep, it was only the flesh and bones that slept, as the 
 shade never slept. No sooner had the medicine man decided 
 one question than he was called upon to decide another. Some 
 of the more important bipeds had been dreaming. Some of 
 their dreams were good and pleasurable and some of them were 
 neither. So the medicine man was requested to give his opinion 
 regarding the import and cause of dreams. 
 
 At that time they had invented some things like spears to 
 kill fish and other animals that lived in and near the sea side. 
 The act of killing these animals was exciting, and in time a 
 natural desire was developed in them to kill these fish and 
 other animals to eat. So these people frequently dreamed that 
 they were killing these fish while they were asleep often at some 
 place where there was plenty of them. The medicine man's 
 decision was that the man's shade had carried him to the place 
 he dreamed of and that he had really been killing fish while 
 he was asleep. So one of them who thought he was of so 
 much importance that his shade might carry him to some of 
 the places he dreamed of when he had taken his last sleep, kept 
 his spear always by him when he laid down to sleep, and 
 
 *The human soul developed 'from this idea. 
 
Man and the Earth 35 
 
 ordered his friends if he slept too long to lay his spear along 
 side of him when they covered him up with sand. Now this 
 example was followed soon by every one and finally became 
 a religious custom. The orang people had imbibed some of 
 the theological customs and ideas of the gibbons. All the 
 ape men in Asia and Africa had a great regard for the moon 
 as a benevolent person. The gorilla people did not stay long 
 on the sea shore; if they had been walking in the sand for a 
 long time, the walking would have made calves on their legs.* 
 The necessity of defending themselves from the attacks of 
 amphibious animals and smashing the shells of shell fish, gradu- 
 ally put into their hands stone hammers, knives and spears. 
 Where they found caves they used them, where there were none 
 they burrowed into the side of a hill or built up stone huts 
 like bee hives. 
 
 Gradually their eyes had become more and more accustomed 
 to the light of the sun. They were now using many hours of 
 the morning and late afternoons, and sleeping through the heat 
 of the day and part of the night. Whatever they saw other 
 animals eat they did the same. They followed nearly all ex- 
 amples set by other animals as far as they could or as far as 
 they thought it was useful. Now let us see where the primi- 
 tive races are scattered. The gorilla family is on the west 
 side of Africa not very far from its original home. The chim- 
 panzee family is scattered along the sea shore mostly on the 
 west side of Africa up to Zanzibar. The orang family is south 
 of Burma to Australia, and north on the Pacific side to the 
 south of China. And the gibbon family is scattered along the 
 sea shore from Ceylon to the Red sea, and above the mouth 
 of the river Indus. While this state of things had been going 
 on in Asia and Africa; snow had been falling at both the poles 
 and the ice had formed on the fresh water sea at the north pole. 
 There were only a few small deep seas at that time; the whole 
 body of land was low with extensive depressions containing 
 salt lime water, and fresh water. The orbit of the earth was 
 circular, and there was no bending of the earth's axis. The 
 sun's rays fell vertically all the year on a small band directly 
 
 * The difference that exists in the construction of the skull or brain 
 and arms of the four families of our present apes has been brought 
 about mainly through the fight for life. 
 
36 Modernism 
 
 on the equator. The seas and shallow water beds absorbed the 
 sun's rays which caused great evaporation and cloudy weather 
 on a narrow belt of the earth. If there had been greater 
 absorption of the sun's rays in the water at any past time in 
 the earth's history than there is at the present time, the earth 
 must have moved in an orbit nearer to the sun at that time 
 than it does now. 
 
 As the sun's rays are absorbed to a much greater extent 
 when the southern hemisphere faces it during our winter at the 
 north, the earth draws nearer to the sun than when our north- 
 ern hemisphere with its much larger extent of land and smaller 
 volume of water faces it. This ought to be conclusive proof 
 that the distribution of water geographically, is one of the main 
 factors causing the bending of the axis of the several planets 
 and the eccentricity of their orbits. The sun being a great 
 electric battery, although its light is scattered through space 
 far beyond the most distant of our planets, its imperceptible 
 substance is mainly directed to the planets that are continually 
 moving around it; hence the side of the earth facing the sun 
 becomes the positive pole of the earth, and the force in opera- 
 tion has a tendency to push the earth away from the sun, 
 but the substance received from the sun is continually carried 
 to the dark and cooler side of the earth which becomes the 
 negative pole, and the attractive force in operation on the dark 
 side of the earth acts against the repelling force of the sun's 
 rays poured upon the bright side with the same power keeping 
 the earth in its regular course from year to year without much 
 deviation. 
 
 But let us get a geographical view of the earth as it looked 
 at the time we left our apish ancestors in Asia, Australia, 
 Africa and elsewhere, wandering along the sea shores and up 
 and down rivers near the mouths of rivers. In some places 
 where the supply of shell fish was very great, large bodies 
 of the ancient people were there collected. North America and 
 Europe were joined from Newfoundland to the British Islands. 
 South America and Africa were joined from Brazil to Morocco. 
 The south of Chili was joined to what is called Lemuria. 
 Alaska from the Aleutian Islands to the Polar sea was joined 
 to northern Asia. South America and Australia extended to 
 the Antarctic sea. Africa extended to fifty degrees south lati- 
 
Man and the Earth 37 
 
 tude. Islands were in all the seas. A few lakes existed on 
 each of the continents. All the seas, lakes, and rivers were 
 filled with fish, lobsters, clams, oysters and other Crustacea and 
 bivalve animals, amphibian and reptilian life. Beasts of many 
 kinds roamed through the forests and nipped the grass and 
 brushes. Feathered birds of every hue, walked the sand and 
 flew above the earth from tree to tree. Insects filled the land 
 and air where torrid heat prevailed. These pestiferous midgets 
 drove all tender skinned animals to coldest parts. In this region 
 where animals could live and grow in strength and size, on 
 land and in the water, there browsed the gigantic mammoth. 
 One of these whose strength could not be estimated, looking 
 about him when his stomach had been filled with a great branch 
 of a tree, that had been cut into small pieces with his huge 
 ivory teeth, said to one of his kindred in language that they 
 alone understood " We are the greatest of all animals on earth 
 in strength and loftiness of proportion. Therefore it is evident 
 that we are the end for which the world was made. The earth 
 is surely finished now and when it grows cooler on the centre 
 of the globe we will own it all." A comet passing near whose 
 air was mostly chlorine gas dipped the end of its tail into the 
 Polar sea. The sea and air were filled with the noxious vapor, 
 and the vaunting mammoth and all the other breathing beasts 
 upon the land who inhaled the deadly fume were stricken dead.* 
 The comet's fiery head now strikes the moon and its tail is 
 swung around to trail the other pole of the earth. Its seething 
 head boils all the water on the moon to steam and this is 
 poured down upon the earth in rain. The rain in mighty tor- 
 rents sweeps around the southern hemisphere from west to 
 east, tearing and smashing the land to tatters. The atmosphere 
 of the comet reaching the atmosphere of the earth was acting 
 as a funnel through which all the water and movable sub- 
 stance on the moon were coming to the earth. In every part 
 of the heavens the lightning moved in continual waves and the 
 thunder roared more dreadful than a fierce and ceaseless battle 
 of artillery. While all the volcanoes on the earth belched forth 
 liquid fire and smoke; the moon was enveloped in a mass of 
 
 * The idea that the bodies of these and other animals that are found 
 frozen in the northern sea were overwhelmed while living is simply non- 
 sehse. They were killed by the poisoned atmosphere and then frozen. 
 
3 8 Modernism 
 
 steam and flame that blotted out the light of the sun through 
 dense and massive clouds for many days and nights. And the 
 water like a cataract besom swept and sunk all the deeper seas 
 and lakes and as they sunk the plastic yielding rocks of high 
 and northern lands were pushed above the waves, but the 
 horrid vampire hung to the failing moon until it sucked all the 
 movable substance of water, sand and precious gems off the 
 burning body of our beautiful satellite and hurled them down 
 on the deluged earth. When the meteoric skeleton of the 
 comet stole away as an unseen ghost, the moon's face was 
 burnt as dry as gasless coke. Much life of every kind upon 
 the earth had been destroyed. The great continent of Australia 
 had suffered most; save on its northern end no animal life 
 had been preserved. Much of its surface had been scooped 
 up by rushing waves and hurled to other parts of the globe. 
 The gradual encroachment of the rising tide upon the land 
 gave fitting chance to all with knowing sense to escape to 
 highest grounds. Much life was thus preserved. The rising 
 land above the sinking wave, was counterpoised in weight by 
 the heavy seas. The land which had been tenanted by the 
 privemal man was favored much, but on the far outstretching 
 beach too distant from the mountain range or elevated lands, 
 the loss of life was great. But this deluge with all the phe- 
 nomena celestial and terrestrial that accompanied it was ob- 
 served by man in his low estate. The awfulness of its dimensions 
 and the terribleness of its character made such an indelible 
 impression on the infantile brain of the human inhabitants of 
 the earth, that they transmitted the observation as a blood 
 inheritance to their posterity. In time several local floods 
 destroyed some life and did great damage on the parts affected. 
 It is questionable if a human being exists to-day whose men- 
 tality is not defective who could behold that sight and live. 
 Prior to the deluge, the earth had through natural revolutions 
 and vast ages of reconstruction, each of which contained ele- 
 ments foreign to those that had preceded it, overcome the 
 power of the sun to preserve an atmosphere all over the earth 
 throughout the year, above the freezing point which had ad- 
 vanced to twenty degrees from the poles. When it had attained 
 that condition, the great volume of foreign water containing all 
 the haloids, was cast upon the earth. The sun's rays had orig- 
 
Man and the Earth 39 
 
 inally combined with all these elements to produce a cold 
 temperature of the atmosphere at localities where the heating 
 property of the sun's rays was diminished to a negative quality. 
 Light and heat are the positive qualities of the sun's rays. Cold 
 and darkness are the opposites of light and heat. When the 
 electric substance contained in the sun's rays manifesting light 
 and heat, strikes the earth, its warm and illuminated side, being 
 flooded with light and heat, becomes the positive pole of the 
 earth, the dark and cold regions of the earth immediately attract 
 the electric substance to the centers of cold and darkness where 
 it combines with their elements and assumes a negative quality 
 and power. As only a small band of the earth was receiving 
 the vertical rays of the sun, and a number of barriers existed 
 preventing the flow of water that was warmed by the rays 
 of the sun from rushing in streams to the cold and dark regions 
 of the earth to warm the water and atmosphere, the negative 
 power exercised by darkness, water and its constituents, com- 
 bined with the electric substance of the sun's rays distributed 
 to the dark and cold regions of the earth, so much overbalanced 
 the power exercised by the vertical rays of the sun, that the 
 earth was soon covered with a mantle of ice nearly to the lines 
 of the tropics. 
 
 After the geographical limits or the ice range had been 
 established, evaporation within the limits of the sun's heating 
 power dried up the saturated lands and the shallow lakes 
 and seas. A portion of the vapor was carried to the north and 
 south by favoring winds, and fell as crystals white upon the 
 rock of ice to freeze and rear it mountain high. At length the 
 weight of ice at the poles began to effect the equipoise of the 
 earth. The continual agitation of the waters of the southern 
 sea, prevented it from congealing in solid mass, and hence the 
 north having no deep sea near the polar circle in solid mass 
 congealed. And so the north overweighing the south in all 
 substance, became top heavy and began to bend toward or 
 from the sun. As the north pole slowly bent toward the sun, 
 the water liberated along the Pacific and the rivers flowing into 
 it from Asia and America, poured down toward the equator. 
 The heat which had been imparted to the water south of the 
 equator, through all the time of the ice formation, before the 
 north pole had begun to bend, did not entirely desert it as the 
 
4O Modernism 
 
 body of water now being heated while the north pole tilted 
 toward the sunset new currents in motion forcing the newly 
 heated water south, keeping the water in the broken continent 
 from freezing and preventing the massing ice in the southern 
 hemisphere from weighing more than the ice and water in the 
 north before the north pole had bent far enough toward the 
 sun to melt the ice up to the arctic circle. Except the water 
 that flowed into the Pacific, none of the water that had been 
 liberated while the north pole was bending toward the sun on 
 its first movement in that direction, had been carried south of 
 the equator. Slowly the north pole kept bending toward the 
 sun, and when the ice had melted nearly to the polar circle 
 the massed ice in the southern hemisphere had overbalanced 
 the weight of substance in the north, and the axis of the earth 
 began to bend the other way. 
 
 The south pole now bending the first time toward the sun, 
 eventually broke up the massive ice formation of the south. 
 Many years after the poles began to bend, the vertical rays 
 of the sun had extended to thirty degrees north and south lati- 
 tude. At this time the ice had melted nearly to the poles. After 
 this, the swing of the axis gradually decreased yearly until it 
 reached nearly at its present movement, the central sea south 
 of the British Islands and Newfoundland, and north of the 
 broad isthmus joining Africa and Brazil, cut through the lime 
 strata near the bottom of the sea, the isthmus sunk and broke 
 in fragments which were pushed by the force of the rushing south- 
 ern sea toward the north. And at the same time the central 
 sea forced a passage near the eastern border of Newfoundland. 
 The southern sea now rushing impetuously toward the north 
 smashed the ice in the northen sea, and these on the surface 
 of a great tidal wave broke through the land joining America 
 to Asia and as it swept southward it buried the Aleutian moun- 
 tains beneath the sea. 
 
 After many years had elapsed, an inland sea that spread 
 over a large district of southeastern Europe and western Asia, 
 the Black sea being a part of its southwestern boundary, the 
 water of this part of the great sea eating into the lime strata 
 near the bottom of the sea, finally reached the basin of the old 
 volcanic range of mountains that connected Asia Minor with 
 Europe. When this event occurred, the furnace of the volcano 
 
Man and the Earth 41 
 
 boiled the water into steam which filling all the space below 
 too full and finding insufficient vent at the old mouth of the 
 volcano for the stream compressed, it tore the mount asunder 
 and opened the Bosphorus gap of the great sea to empty into 
 the Mediterranean. This deluged Asia Minor and the Grecian 
 Archipelago, inundating all the coast of the greater sea and 
 as the swelling waves rushed on they choked the gates of 
 rocky Gibraltar. A vast area by the cutting of the outlet for 
 the inland sea was drained and dried for fitting use of man 
 and beast. The revolution of the axis of the earth from one 
 spring equinox to another, consumed long periods of time in 
 the beginning. The first revolution the longest period. The 
 second revolution consumed much less time. The third revolu- 
 tion consumed very much less time than the second.* The 
 equilibrium of the forces in operation on the earth at that time 
 was nearly established. While these revolutions were pro- 
 gressing, the barriers that were holding the seas apart, and 
 preventing the flow of warm water from the equator to both 
 the poles were gradually breaking down. When all of these 
 barriers were swept away, the currents of warm water were 
 of inestimable value in the final dissolution of the ice formation. 
 Through the power exercised by these currents, and the evap- 
 oration caused by the sun's rays, the land was drained and 
 dried leaving salt and other substances where the water had 
 lodged, or where they had been whirled, deposited, or drifted. 
 The water having been drained off the land except in deep 
 cavities where a few inland seas and lakes still remain, all the 
 water on the earth with these exceptions, being free to flow 
 through one great ocean without a substantial barrier to inter- 
 cept its continual movement; the earth thus having attained a 
 tilting motion still continues it through the operation of the 
 same forces that originally started it. 
 
 All the water in the great ocean being free to move now to 
 the north and south poles, alternately, the weight of the sub- 
 stance at one pole continues to overbalance the weight of 
 the substance at the other pole semi-annually, thereby pre- 
 serving the tilting movement of the earth. As the congealed 
 
 * This would account for the two or three minor ice epochs, as the 
 weight of all substance at each pole had to overbalance the weight at 
 the other before the earth began to tilt the other way. 
 
42 Modernism 
 
 water in the southern hemisphere is set free in less time than 
 in the northern hemisphere, the balance of the substance of 
 the earth which occurs in March and September of each year 
 is recovered in less time by the southern hemisphere than it 
 is by the northern hemisphere.* After the deluge, a large part 
 of the desert of Sahara was an inland sea. On other deserts 
 where any of the land was low, shallow lakes existed. All 
 depressions of the earth were rilled with water. When the 
 sun's rays through evaporation had dried these depressions up, 
 deposits of salt and sand were left where these lakes and 
 inland seas had been. The eating into the lime strata through 
 fissures under the ocean and inland seas or lakes, caused much 
 volcanic action. Through such means continual upheaval, earth- 
 quakes, and subsidence in many parts of the earth still prevail. 
 During the long period that the ice had been accumulating 
 at the north and south, all the vegetable species had changed 
 its old color from red and white to green, in consequence of 
 the large amount of chlorine and other gases that had been 
 deposited on the earth in the deluge water. And by these an 
 energy that had not existed was infused into the lungs of all 
 warm blooded animals. During the first ice period, or the life- 
 time of those who had witnessed the deluge, the people tried to 
 live some distance from the sea on the banks of rivers near the 
 sea. But soon the seashores began to feel the swarming feet 
 of the offsprings of the ape again. The branch of the chim- 
 panzee family that had come north of the equator before the 
 deluge, continued its march toward the north during the ice 
 period. Eventually they arrived on a southern tributary of the 
 Nile, they then followed that stream until they finally came 
 farther north than the ancient boundary of Ethiopia. The off- 
 springs of the gibbon that had got as far north as Mecca, con- 
 tinued their march up along the eastern fork of the Red sea into 
 the valley of the Dead sea after the deluge. The branch of the 
 gibbon family which advanced first and had arrived on the shore 
 of the Mediterranean, wandered along the southern shores of 
 that sea and some of them crossed the isthmus connecting Africa 
 
 * The time will never come unless the amount of water on the earth 
 should be increased or decreased, that the northern hemisphere will be 
 farther from the sun in winter than it is in summer. For such a thing 
 to occur the northern hemisphere would have to sink and the southern 
 hemisphere rise. 
 
Man and the Earth 43 
 
 with Brazil. And when the north pole began to bend toward 
 the sun, most of those who were wandering along the south 
 shore of the sea, crossed the narrow strait and wandered up 
 toward the north along the Atlantic until they came to the 
 great arm of land that reached out from the north of France 
 to Newfoundland, wandering out, along the sea, one tribe or 
 more of this branch, crossed to North America and continued 
 their march until they found themselves on the northern side 
 of Lake Superior. 
 
 A large part of this branch of the gibbons which did not 
 cross the Nile when the north pole began to bend toward the 
 sun wandered along the eastern end of the Mediterranean. 
 Finally they wandered along the northern shore of this sea and 
 up the Atlantic as the first advance guard had done, and over 
 on the cross-shaped country stretching into the sea. This 
 country reached from the isthmus connecting Africa with Brazil, 
 to Iceland, and from the north of France to North America. 
 When the south pole was bending to the sun, man throughout 
 all cold regions began to clothe himself with the skins of ani- 
 mals. Those whom we left in the valley of the Dead Sea fol- 
 lowing the sun, began to fight their way to the north, but they 
 soon came in contact with herbivorous animals and gradually 
 began to use them. Those whom we left on the banks of the 
 Indus, after fighting their way up that river, reached the 
 mountain passes, and soon beheld herds and flocks of sheep 
 and cattle of every kind. The manner in which those people 
 became sun worshippers is graphically described in an early 
 chapter of the book. As the sun, moon and stars were believed 
 to be persons, attributing to them personal characteristics and 
 powers, so the sun which had been Sat, Saturn and Satin, as 
 an old bad demon, was now given the name of sky father, 
 embracing the names of Zeus Petri and (Jupiter). The most 
 primitive people had called the moon ma, because the moon 
 was supposed to be as useful to all the people as the mother 
 is to her child. The men having been compelled by force of 
 the circumstances that surrounded them while they were fight- 
 ing their way up the river Indus in the forests, being the de- 
 fenders and feeders of the family, had become indispensably 
 useful. It being now known to all that the sun was much 
 more useful to them than the moon, the sun being the only 
 
44 Modernism 
 
 natural object that seemed to compare in usefulness favorable 
 with the male parent, it was called the sky father. 
 
 The admiration, love, praise and expressions of gratitude 
 which had formerly been bestowed upon the moon, were now 
 devoted to the sun. The adoption of the new religion sub- 
 ordinated the will of the woman to the will of the man and 
 gave him power to rule her for the purpose of knowing that he 
 would be the father of the children that she might become the 
 mother of. This was the first great change in the social 
 phenomena. The change had been made before the new re- 
 ligious system had been adopted, but it did not become a civil 
 and religious rule until the chief and seer of the tribe had so 
 decreed. Having become the acknowledged rule of one tribe, 
 it soon spread to most of the tribes of mankind through inter- 
 course of the chiefs and seers of one nation with the chiefs 
 and seers of another. Most of the customs, maxims and rites 
 that had been established during the long period in which moon 
 worship prevailed, were still observed by the sun worshippers. 
 No rite had been abolished, but in some cases a new form was 
 substituted for the old manner of observing the rite. The ice 
 period that followed after the deluge, produced at the beginning 
 a great change in the atmosphere all over the earth. This 
 atmospheric change soon convinced primitive man that the sun 
 was more useful to him than the moon. The ancient man 
 having forgotten that he came down out of the trees, believed 
 rightly that every living thing came up originally out of the 
 water. When man arrived at that condition of mentality which 
 caused him to think of things historically, he traced his an- 
 cestors back to the sea. But the most primitive men were no 
 historians. They worshipped the moon because they believed, 
 notwithstanding they knew it was very limited in power, that 
 it was the most useful object in nature to them. Its first 
 appearance was hailed with acclamations of joy. When it had 
 arrived at maturity as their sky Ma, they watched it with great 
 happiness, and when it was disappearing they kissed their hands 
 to it as to a benevolent friend leaving them. They expressed 
 feelings of sorrow when it was growing old and small. When 
 it disappeared from their view altogether, their sorrow was 
 such as one feels for a friend who had been laid in the tomb 
 or grave. When it was eclipsed by the shadow of the earth 
 
Man and the Earth 45 
 
 they were excited beyond any measure of description with 
 horror. When clouds obscured it, they were angry with the 
 clouds and spit at them in a spiteful manner. 
 
 Regarding the moon as their sky Ma, a person, they tried 
 to follow her as an exemplar. Believing that she was reborn 
 by going into a cave in the sky when she was obscured by 
 rays of the sun; they went into caves and were reborn. Rebirth 
 or being born again, has ever since been the first religious rite 
 that all religious sects have considered essential. They believed 
 that every thing that appeared to them in dreams was abso- 
 lutely true. In their dreams they saw giants, pygmies and ani- 
 mals in shapes unnatural. When they saw in their caves shapes 
 of things that had nearly the appearance of men and beasts, 
 they imagined that men and beasts had been turned into stone. 
 When they found a white clay they used it to paint their bodies 
 white like the moon. This garment first clothed them when 
 they arrived at the age or time of maturity. It was a religious 
 rite. Large sea shells were struck with a stone hammer to 
 make a noise for the purpose of driving the dragon away from 
 the moon when an eclipse occurred. A weed like our milk 
 weed somewhat, was discovered. They called it the moon plant. 
 Milk oozed from the stalk when it was mature. The milk of 
 this weed was intoxicating. When they drank it they often 
 imagined that they were communing with their dead relatives 
 and friends. When they buried their friends they put in the 
 grave any implement they used while living and something to 
 eat. They visited the grave sometimes, put eatables on the 
 grave and frequently communed with the dead especially when 
 they had been sucking the juice out of the moon plant. Every- 
 thing that they believed was helpful to them was considered 
 good, all other things were bad. All their customs, rites and 
 beliefs were part of their religion. The sun worshippers received 
 all these things from their ancestors naturally as a heritage 
 from the dead. The sun did not go through such changes as 
 the moon. It arose out of the water and went down into the 
 water, they believed, therefore it was reborn every morning. 
 Immersion or baptism was substituted for going into the cave 
 in order to be reborn. The sun being red when seen best at 
 evening and in the morning, the young men and women were 
 painted red. Afterwards there was added to this at midsummer, 
 
46 Modernism 
 
 on the part of the men, a test of physical strength. On a cer- 
 tain occasion a man was hunting for food for the family and 
 after putting several arrows into the body of a wild hog he 
 finally killed it. It had been a hard fight and he talked about 
 it after. At that time his wife had brought him a young son, 
 and in a few days the babe's face began to look something like 
 a pig's face. This circumstance soon convinced many people 
 that the pig's shade for spite or to get satisfaction, entered the 
 body of the child. Now it was deemed good policy for hunters 
 to stay in bed for about ten days, and to refrain from killing 
 animals until the new born child's features appeared human in 
 every respect. This custom spread throughout the world and 
 it was observed as strictly as any religious rite. When the sun 
 had apparently gone south as far as it ever goes, at the winter 
 solstice, it then appears to remain stationary for a couple of 
 days. When this occurred, the old sun worshippers were afraid 
 that it might not come back again. They then commenced to 
 put up all kinds of prayers and petitions to the sun to induce 
 it to come back again to the north.* 
 
 When the sun seemed to advance the first step toward them, 
 they broke forth in acclamations of joy and happiness the same 
 as their ancestors did when the new moon first appeared and 
 the same as we do at Christmas. It was a universal belief that 
 the shades of animals took possession of human bodies, and 
 when one of them belched up wind from his stomach he usually 
 said thank you animal believing that the animal who had taken 
 possession of his body made its escape when he belched or 
 eructed wind. While the animal shades had possession of their 
 bodies, they believed that these animals knew everything wrong 
 that they did, so in order to induce these animal's shades to 
 leave them they confessed their sins thinking that the animal 
 who sometimes made them sick, would surely leave them and 
 they would have no more trouble. This is why people com- 
 menced to confess their sins, but it became a religious custom 
 and some sects have not abandoned it up to the present day. 
 After this body of hunters had gained the highlands with their 
 wives and children, they soon began to live on the milk and 
 flesh of cows, goats, sheep and cattle. When those people 
 
 * This custom was observed by the Jews. 
 
Man and the Earth 47 
 
 arrived there, the Caspian sea was divided by a low spur of the 
 Caucasus mountains. As the river Volga emptied into the 
 sea of Azof at that time this spur of the Caucasus was used 
 as a path or highway in after years for several tribes to 
 migrate to countries west and southwest of the Caspian, but 
 peace and prosperity reigned for several generations. 
 
 During the very primitive ages there were men and women 
 who were naturally qualified to take some thought about the 
 moon and stars. These were called seers and medicine men 
 and women. By constant watching, they had traced the path 
 of the moon from year to year, through the stars. Eventually 
 they divided the stars into groups as the moon each night 
 reached group after group in its course through the firmament. 
 In dividing the groups, the shapes of animals that the groups 
 were thought to most resemble were given to them. After- 
 wards, when they wandered to other regions of the earth, the 
 animals that attracted their attention most for some reason were 
 given to the groups. The seers now having a greater oppor- 
 tunity to view the heavens than ever before, through more 
 leisure and greater elevation of land, they employed themselves 
 in studying every part of the heavens assiduously. Their fathers 
 named the host of heaven through countless nights in times 
 gone by, and stored on memory's tablet are the beastly names 
 they gave them. Each child when born received the name of 
 the beast the father saw first when the child was born. But 
 to remodel the style of the hunter's thought and way, to the 
 shepherd's life and view, the seer was called who thus declared 
 " The child should be named for the stars that are highest 
 above when the child is born. In the zenith you will see if 
 it comes in the night and I will tell what it is if it is born 
 any time after the stars disappear." So the custom was changed 
 to a much better mode of naming the children of the sun. 
 Watching their cattle as they moved along to better lands for 
 grazing in the west, they eventually found themselves near the 
 Aral sea. A young shepherdess while watching her sheep, saw 
 a pig rooting up the ground in the early spring and during 
 the summer a patch of tall grass grew on a part of the ground 
 that the pig had rooted up. This grass had nice ears on it 
 when it was full grown, and when the ears were ripe she saw 
 the birds pulling at them, so she went over and plucked an ear 
 
48 Modernism 
 
 off one of the stalks and finding that the seeds tasted good she 
 cut the stalks down and carried them to the hut she slept in. 
 She told to her father the story of the pig rooting up the ground 
 and the tall grass growing where the pig had been rooting. 
 Her father tasted the seed and thought that a lot of them would 
 make good food. So they got all of the seeds out of the ears 
 and saved them to plant early in the following spring. Her 
 father dug up enough soil, not very deep, when the frost was 
 out of the ground and planted the seed. The young virgin 
 whose name was changed as it passed from one language to 
 another until it at last became widely known as Ceres, watched 
 the grass as it grew. When it was ripe her father cut it down, 
 and this time they had quite a large quantity of seed. 
 
 Ceres put some of the dry seed on a flat stone, and with a 
 small stone in her hand she ground the seed into flour. She 
 then built a little fire and put the flat stone on the fire, and 
 while the stone was getting hot she mixed the flour with some 
 milk and made a little pan cake and baked it on the hot stone. 
 She and her father ate the pancake and they found it so palatable 
 that they saved all the rest of the seed for planting in the fol- 
 lowing spring. Her father's name was Bootes,* he was a strong 
 and brave man. He had killed a great bear in his youth that 
 every one feared. When the spring came around again, he 
 thought it would be too much of a job to dig enough ground 
 to plant all their seed, so he made a wooden plow and hitched 
 a yoke of oxen he used in drawing loads to the plow. After 
 the ground was plowed he sowed the seed, and he and the oxen 
 trampled the seed down so that it was covered with a thin 
 coat of soil. When it grew up they had a large and splendid 
 patch of barley, and when the grain was ripe for cutting and 
 the gentle breeze of autumn was floating over the field of barley 
 the beautiful golden tinted ears were seen to shimmer in un- 
 dulating movement like the ocean's waves. This field of barley 
 they called their garden. The faculty of comparison was very 
 strong in primitive man. When two things looked nearly 
 alike, the name of the older thing was applied to that which 
 resembled it. After the sun had disappeared in the evening 
 from the view of those who were watching the garden of barley, 
 
 * Bootes is the present name. What the man's name was originally we 
 don't know, but it is likely that he was the first man constellated. 
 
Man and the Earth 49 
 
 turning their eyes to the west they saw a shimmering light 
 gliding up higher and higher in the western sky, which was 
 caused by the reflection of the sun's rays falling on the At- 
 lantic ocean. This beautiful scene they named a garden as 
 it seemed to look like their own garden of barley, and they 
 called it the garden of the west. The killing of the dangerous 
 bear by Bootes, his invention of the plow and a number of 
 other useful things he did raised him so much in the esti- 
 mation of the people that when he died, the cluster of stars 
 which had been known as the barking dog, under which he 
 was born, lost its animal name and was ever after his death 
 called the stars of Bootes. And under the constellation of 
 Bootes, there is a cluster of stars which originally had an 
 animal name. When Ceres, the virgin, died because her life 
 had been so useful to the human family, this cluster of stars 
 by common consent lost its animal name and was ever after 
 called the stars of The Virgin. The sun being an exemplar to 
 his children his course through the sky from new moon to new 
 moon was noted. 
 
 By the tilting movement of the earth the north and south 
 poles alternately inclined toward the sun. This movement pro- 
 duced summer and winter in the north and south each year. 
 From the beginning of vegetable growth until vegetable growth 
 ceased each year, occupied about seven moons. At the full 
 moon of each month votive offerings were presented to the 
 sun. This had been one of the customs of the moon wor- 
 shippers. They offered such things as the earth produced. 
 Things that were useful to themselves and their domesticated 
 animals. In the first moon eggs and lentils were offered. In 
 the second such early vegetables as the earth produced. In 
 third, blossoms and flowers. In the fourth barley ears and 
 early fruit. In the fifth, pancakes and fruit juice. The sixth 
 was the great harvest festival of late fruit and all other things 
 that the earth produced. In the seventh month the grass had 
 been cropped close to the earth by the cattle, and there was 
 nothing left for them to feed upon but thorn bushes and thistles.* 
 All votive offerings were twined or wreathed in the shape of 
 a crown. The sun now sinking into the region of darkness was 
 
 * When sun worship was succeeded by personifications of the sun in the 
 ritual the personification was crowned with thorns. 
 
50 Modernism 
 
 crowned with thorns and thistles. Then came wreaths of barley 
 straw sprinkled with milk. This straw was piled up at the end 
 of a long shed built for sheltering lambs and kids. The kids 
 and lambs fed on this principally when they were born at any 
 time during the winter, when their mothers had an insufficient 
 supply of milk to feed them. The cattle fed on it also, when 
 the snow was too deep to be removed by their hoofs in search- 
 ing for grass. This long shed was put up by the seers in the 
 extreme summer quarter of the heavens. It is called the stable 
 of Argus. When the winter solstice arrived, their wreath was 
 made of evergreens. These evergreens being the only vegetable 
 substance alive continued to be their votive offering until the 
 spring opened. 
 
 When they invented sand glasses, which recorded the hours 
 of day and night, they found that the noted points on the sun 
 dials agreed with the sand glasses in determining that at both 
 points the days and nights were of equal length. These were 
 then called the equinoctial points. From these two points of 
 the sun's course in the heavens a line was established. After- 
 wards when it was known by the seers that the sun was not 
 a god, and a more elaborate system of religion was organized 
 allegorizing the sun, the man or supposed man who personified 
 the sun was said to be crossified in September when the sun 
 crossed the equinoctial line. Sun and moon worship had been 
 merged a long time before the age of allegory. 
 
 We are now thousands of years away from our great people 
 living near the Caspian sea; let us get back to them. With 
 them it was an age of thought and invention. They had in- 
 creased in number and were cultivating the light soil near the 
 Caspian sea. Their empire reached east to Tibet, north to the 
 river Obi, and west and south to western Europe and Iran. 
 Their boats now cross the Caspian sea and also the Aral. All 
 over the land meteoric iron had been discovered but it was 
 too hard to utilize much of it for any purpose. In following 
 their cattle and looking out for good pasture land for all seasons 
 of the year, a young chief had extended his investigations as 
 far north as the Ural mountains. Stone had been used for 
 arrow and spear heads, and for knives and some other imple- 
 ments. They were continually on the lookout for something 
 better than stone for such purposes. The young chief referred 
 
Man and the Earth 5 1 
 
 to, on one of his tours to the north, had discovered at the 
 base of the Ural mountains, some large pieces of magnetic iron. 
 He hammered these pieces with his stone hammer into proper 
 shape for a few arrow heads and knives. He had boats that 
 he used on the rivers and near the land on the sea. One day 
 while he was moving around in his boat on the sea, an arrow 
 slipped out of the holder falling into the water the head toward 
 the south. The head of the arrow immediately swung around 
 toward the north. This action of the arrow caused him to 
 replace the arrow in the water for the purpose of seeing if it 
 would perform the same act again. Seeing that it did, he tried 
 it several times with the same result. He then tried all of his 
 arrows and found that those which had iron heads acted the 
 same as the first, and those with stone heads remained quiet 
 in the position in which he placed them in the water. When he 
 got to the camp of the tribe, he called the attention of the 
 seer of the tribe to the action of the arrows. The seer was an 
 elderly man and quite a good astronomer. He experimented 
 with one of the arrows and then compared it with an astron- 
 omical instrument that pointed to the stars around which all 
 the other stars seemed to revolve. He saw that the arrow 
 head and staff compared with the pointer of his instrument as 
 near as possible. 
 
 At that time the north pole of the earth was not permanently 
 established. The young chief now went to the place where 
 he had found the iron and gathered up every bit of it that 
 he could find. The arrow he had given to the seer was left 
 with him so that he could call the attention of the other seers 
 to the matter. It was finally agreed by them that this dis- 
 covery was a thing of so much importance that it should be 
 kept a secret from the common people. For official use a 
 reed was cut in two pieces, the hollow part of the pieces was 
 cleansed out and filled with air blown into the pieces by the 
 mouth of a person and then plugged up at each end. At the 
 end of one piece a small piece of the iron was placed where it 
 could not be seen.* The other piece of the reed was fastened 
 at the centre as a crossbar to denote east and west. A vase 
 called a cup, was then filled with water and the cross was placed 
 in the water to float. The rim of the cup was then marked 
 
 * This was the reed and fire that the great Titan stole from heaven. 
 
52 Modernism 
 
 to indicate the degrees of departure from the cardinal points. 
 A long time after this discovery, in the age of fire, the cup 
 containing the cross was placed up in heaven on the back of 
 the Hydra near the point where the equinoctial crosses the 
 equinoctial colure and the earth's orbit.* That cup contained 
 the knowledge of the gods. Hercules used it in one of his 
 voyages. As this arrow seemed to contain intelligence and life, 
 the star to which it pointed was called the tree of life. 
 
 Thought or meditation was the most important part of the 
 education of every seer. It was inculcated for the purpose of 
 helping the inventive faculties, and for ascertaining the cause 
 of certain phenomena which they did not understand, and to 
 arrive at the truth as near as possible about everything. This 
 was a high and holy aspiration. If you wonder at the mighty 
 things those people with small skulls did who were so simple, 
 ignorant and superstitious in many respects, look at the work 
 of ants, bees, beavers and other animals and insects. One of 
 those seers meditating on what his eyes beheld, having a perfect 
 knowledge of all the imagined truths taught by the most learned 
 and respected seers of his community, had just discovered a 
 new and great truth in his mind. Having witnessed on many 
 occasions a glowing red appearance in the eastern sky some 
 time before sunrise, and having seen the same fiery glowing 
 red color of the western sky when the sun had set, and then 
 on his lofty perch on the plain of Ust-Urt looking toward the 
 north on a clear moonless night, he witnessed the electric dis- 
 play so often seen even lower than our own latitude. As he 
 meditated on what he saw the sun being below the horizon 
 when he had witnessed all these lights, he concluded that these 
 lights were the tops of blazes from a great fire that was behind 
 the earth. He made a great discovery. The fire behind the 
 earth became the fountain of life and heat. The sun and all 
 the other orbs of light received and renewed their fires from 
 this blazing fire. It was eventually called the hearth of the 
 universe. Although it was an idea based on ignorance of fact, 
 it became the supreme god from which all the other lights in 
 heaven emanated. This idea spread through the greater part 
 of the earth. The family hearth in every habitation symbolized 
 that fire or the hearth of the universe. The ceaseless fires on every 
 
 * This is called the cup of Media. 
 
Man and the Earth 53 
 
 altar also symbolized that fire. Fire became a sacred element 
 and it was preserved and protected in temples and all the habi- 
 tations of men, but yet the great host of humanity still wor- 
 shipped the sun and moon. 
 
 The development of this idea produced an ambitious desire 
 among the great seers of the world to get as complete a knowl- 
 edge of the heavens as possible. The result was that in time 
 they discovered that the sun, moon, and stars, and the earth 
 revolved around the hearth of 'the universe, in addition it was 
 called the central fire. Having a new supreme god a new 
 religious system must be established. The most important rite 
 of both moon and sun worship was rebirth. To be a son or 
 daughter of either the moon or sun it was necessary to be 
 born again according to the customs of both religions. While 
 the applicant for initiation into the mysteries of the new society 
 might conform to the customs of the older systems in the 
 matter of rebirth, it was necessary now for a son or daughter 
 of the new supreme god, to pass through fire in order to be 
 reborn. All along at the head of every tribe there was the 
 chief, now a number of the seers met in a private council, sev- 
 eral of them had private confabs with each other on the matter 
 they were going to talk about. Their argument was that as 
 they possessed most of the knowledge about things in general, 
 especially the celestial knowledge, that in place of occupying 
 the second place in the body politic, they ought to rank first. 
 They drew up a code of rules dividing all the people into four 
 classes, but they kepit this part of the plot to themselves. The 
 only thing they made public was, that as they possessed more 
 knowledge than the chiefs or any one else, they ought to have 
 the power of issuing all decrees and of being subject only to 
 their own rules and regulations. 
 
 As the great body of the people had a superstitious respect 
 for the seers their plot was practically successful. At the 
 northern end of the Caspian sea, there were three brothers each 
 of whom was a chief. Their names were At, Er and Brit. At 
 had many boats moored on the northern end of the Caspian 
 sea. He carried on considerable trade with the people on the 
 eastern side of the sea wMi his boats. When the first decree 
 was issued by the seers he made up his mind to rebel against 
 it at once. The seers on the northern side of the sea had not 
 
54 Modernism 
 
 been consulted. At being a man of great intelligence for the 
 time, he united all the people on the northern and western sides 
 in his cause. Preparations now commenced for a clash of arms. 
 On the eastern side of the sea the people outnumbered those 
 on the northern and western side ten to one at least. The 
 seers now organized a large party of young men to make a 
 quick tour around the north end of the sea on horseback for 
 the purpose of driving all the sheep and cattle around to their 
 side. In the eastern part of Europe at that time many of the 
 beasts of prey that had been driven out of central Asia had 
 been making that part of the world their home, this fact kept 
 the young men in continual warfare with these animals. The 
 spear and bow and arrow had entirely taken the place of clubs 
 and stones. One of At's boatmen had seen the young men 
 on parade, and learned their object. At now got busy and 
 soon had a small army of picked men under his own command 
 ready to receive the horsemen. In place of surprising At he 
 surprised them. He had his horsemen armed with spears while 
 the men on foot were well practised archers. It was no battle, 
 the archers were in the front line and the horsemen were in 
 the rear. The first volley of arrows threw the seer's company 
 of horsemen into disorder, At and his company of horsemen 
 followed them as far as he thought it was judicious. It was 
 a jovial party that returned to their camp that night, They 
 celebrated their victory until sunrise on the following morn- 
 ing. In a few days a small fleet under the command of At 
 sailed across the Caspian for the main purpose of securing 
 some barley but when they arrived on the other side they ascer- 
 tained from some friends who intended to join them, that prepar- 
 ations were making on a large scale to organize a great army 
 to suppress the rebellion. At advised his friends to get as many 
 chiefs as they could to join them and to secure barley and 
 other kinds of provisions, arms, their families and friends, and 
 cattle, do their work expeditiously and he would march with 
 every man he could arm to their assistance. If they could 
 induce a large enough number to join them they would unite 
 their forces and attack the seer's army and surely defeat it. 
 At returned but left a few spies in good boats to watch the 
 enemy and communicate with their friends. 
 
Man and the Earth 55 
 
 The dissension among the people on the eastern side of the 
 sea did not assume a very grave character as only three chiefs 
 advanced in years, and seven young ones, joined the forces of 
 rebellion. These were the only ones who could secure most 
 of the members of their tribes to act against the seers. How- 
 ever, they were brave men and they went out defiantly with 
 all their goods and marched around the northern end of the 
 Caspian sea. But the seers gave them warning that if they 
 joined the enemies of their gods that they would surely destroy 
 them. When all the rebellious chiefs had come together to 
 discuss the situation that confronted them, they finally resolved 
 that it would be foolish for so small an army as they could 
 muster, to attempt to overcome the great army that the seers 
 were organizing.* It was in our month of May that they built 
 their last fires to propitate the supreme god for guidance and 
 fortune. All the omens prophesied success in the enterprise they 
 were directed to undertake, to reach the golden land of the 
 sun in the west. They resolved also to commemorate their last 
 hearth fire forever if fortune smiled on them in the country 
 which would become their final home. This rebellion was the 
 rebellion in heaven referred to in the cosmogies of the most 
 ancient people who had written documents. At is Lucifer, 
 who was the wisest and brightest ornament of that ancient 
 society. The legends of many nations which had no knowledge 
 of where they came from originally, got their idea of a prom- 
 ised land from the legend referring to the oracle promising a 
 home in a fertile land to At and his brethren. 
 
 We will continue the story of At and his companions at the 
 north end of the Caspian sea. Their boats were placed on 
 carts for oxen to draw them. All their tents and other prop- 
 erty were fastened on the backs of cattle, asses and mules. 
 Taking up the march toward the setting sun, day after day they 
 continued without stopping, crossing all rivers and streams 
 at most convenient places till they found themselves on the 
 beach of the Baltic sea. The shell fish of the Caspian sea had 
 become too poor to make good food, but now they found a 
 sea that had a great supply of fine shell fish. This circum- 
 
 * Finding that their attempt to elevate themselves was the cause of 
 much strife among those who did not rebel, they abandoned their 
 demand until they had come into India. 
 
56 Modernism 
 
 stance prevented the further progress of the great body of the 
 people for some time as the old appetite for shell fish returned, 
 but At and a large delegation well armed, with plenty of pro- 
 visions went on a tour of inspection. After traveling on horse- 
 back out on the great arm of land in the western sea described 
 in another part of this history heretofore, they returned to the 
 Baltic and began to prepare for a final settlement of the people 
 in the country last referred to. The people living in this coun- 
 try were the offsprings of the gibbon which had first wandered 
 along the beach. Some of the mixed brood of the chimpanzee 
 and gibbon that had wandered all along the southern shore of 
 the Mediterranean, had crossed the straits and were occupying 
 a part, of the country. The original inhabitants being scattered 
 mostly along the sea shore could only make a poor resistance 
 to the new comers. The country was naturally divided into 
 three grand sections; between each a low stretch of meadow 
 land. The first connected by one of the valleys with the north 
 of France. This section or country fell by lot to Brit. The 
 second division fell to Er. . The third and largest division fell 
 to At. The ten chiefs who joined At's rebellion, were each 
 made a governor of one of the ten sections or principalities 
 that the country was divided into. A great highway was cut 
 from the seat of government of Atland, through Erland, to 
 the site of the present city of London. This was Brit's capital 
 but the road continued through the north of France and up 
 to the Baltic sea. In time tin was discovered in Brit's land, 
 and when it was used in other places it was called Brit's tin, 
 from which the name of Britain is derived. After all the 
 shallow seas and lakes in every part of the world had been 
 dried up through evaporation, and many lands had sunk and 
 risen through volcanic action, the evaporated water was added 
 to the ocean, the valleys between France, Britain, Erland and 
 Atland through these forces the valleys sunk beneath the seas 
 thus dividing them into separate islands. This had come to 
 pass while At, who was king of Atland was still young. His 
 country thus being separated from all the rest of the world, 
 his genius for boat building now was developed to a degree 
 that made him the wonder of the world. Using the compass 
 or cross placed in a bowl or cup of water as it is represented 
 on the back of the Hydra constellation, his ships, the first 
 
Man and the Earth 57 
 
 that had ever been built on the earth, propelled by many 
 oarsmen were soon navigating the sea that was named for him 
 and his country. Atlan-tic or Atland sea. And Atlas moun- 
 tains bordering on the sea. These are the names the people 
 living at the trading ports on the Mediterranean gave to Atland, 
 the Atlantic and the Atlas mountains. Every nation with which 
 they had any commercial intercourse has preserved the names 
 their ancestors applied to the people and to things belonging 
 to them. 
 
 The Atlantians departed from their native country when it 
 had arrived at its highest point of useful knowledge. When 
 allegory took the place of honest ignorance, that moment man, 
 the multitude, began to enter a wilderness out of which he 
 has not returned; hence the power exercised over the minds 
 of the lost, by the Grand Lama of Tibet and the Pope of Rome. 
 When the first ship of Atland with a band of oarsmen on each 
 side, their heads only observable, their oars like great arms 
 dipping into the water, like a huge caterpillar moving near 
 the sea shore too distant to be inspected, you have here the 
 impression it made on the minds of the beholders, by the name 
 they gave it. Briareus with his fifty heads, one hundred eyes 
 and as many arms. When the people on the shores of the 
 great inland sea, had come into contact with this race of well 
 fed men, whose labor and exercise had for years been the means 
 of producing a race of tall and athletic men, they called those 
 sailors Titans and Giants, because they were taller and stronger 
 than the common races of mankind. As time advanced they 
 traded at all the sea ports of the Atlantic and carried war into 
 the Mediterranean, conquering the nations on both sides of 
 that sea as far as Italy and Egypt. 
 
 Prior to this, they had secured territorial rights to land near 
 the mouth of the Nile and planted a colony there. They also 
 planted a large colony in Phoenicia, and possibly in Etruria. 
 Being masters of the whole sea coast except the Athenian king- 
 dom, they finally prepared a large fleet to attack the people 
 of Athens along the whole coast line. The battle was waged 
 for several days but in the end the Titans, as they were called, 
 were defeated. There was a combustible called Greek fire 
 which was used by the Athenians. It was thrown into the 
 ships of the Atlantians. It was through the use of tliis com- 
 
58 Modernism 
 
 bustible that they were defeated. The making of it was a 
 secret known only to a certain family. The commander of the 
 Atlantian fleet did not intend to return home a defeated officer, 
 and as he was a son of the reigning monarch he had power 
 to act as he thought best in any contingency in the final accom- 
 plishment of the object of the expedition, so he retreated with 
 what ships and men he had left, to Sidon where they had 
 planted a colony, with the intention of discovering by any 
 means possible the manner in which this combustible was made, 
 so that he would be able in his next attack on the people of 
 the Athenian state, to beat them with their own tools. 
 
 It seems that they were successful in the matter of finding 
 out how Greek fire was made, but the first we have any knowl- 
 edge of their use of it, was when one of their offsprings, Hanni- 
 bal, used it in blowing up rocks, clearing a way for his ele- 
 phants to cross the Alps. 
 
 After the fight between the Athenians and Atlantians had 
 taken place, and before the report of it had reached Egypt, 
 Sidon, or any distant point, the comet which had drenched the 
 earth, which passes near us every thirty-three years, while mov- 
 ing through the atmosphere was thrown into great disorder, 
 filling the heavens with a pyrotechnical display. This occurring 
 near the time of the great battle between the Athenians and 
 Titans, tradition, when all the knowledge of the facts was long 
 forgotten, claimed the meteoric display as a battle of the gods. 
 And when another people wandered over the north and saw the 
 great boulders that the ice had dropped upon the land, and 
 the stone implements the most ancient people used while living 
 there, these were clear proofs that Jupiter and his followers 
 and Saturn and the Titans used those boulders and man-made 
 implements in their war. And the huge skeletons of whales 
 with the hole in the center of the head which the whale used 
 to cast the water up that came into its mouth, the eyes too 
 small to be seen, this hole was the one eye of the mythical 
 cyclop. The skeletons of other huge animals dropped by the 
 melting ice were the skeletons of the great Titans who fought 
 against Jupiter and his friends. This battle, by mixing it with 
 the rebellion of At was the war in heaven in which Jupiter 
 and Lucifer were such prominent actors. In their communi- 
 cation with people of all nations, it occurred to their soldiers 
 
Man and the Earth 59 
 
 and sea-men as it always does to the same classes even at the 
 present day, that these nien having close communication with 
 women, many of whom were unclean, the most virulent con- 
 tagious disease known to man was the result. To prevent and 
 render their men immune in their relations with the women of 
 other nations, they found it necessary at last, on account of 
 the spreading of the disease among the people at home, to cir- 
 cumcise all the male children a short time after their birth. 
 This custom through their introduction of it in their colonies 
 along the Mediterranean, spread throughout a large part of 
 Asia and Africa. A long time before the events referring to 
 their trading with the people in southern Europe, Asia and 
 Africa; they discovered Indians near the mouth of the Missis- 
 sippi river. These Indians had copper ornaments and other 
 things. The Indians informed them that the copper came from 
 the north. These Indians were the offsprings of the tribes 
 that crossed over to North America when the offsprings of the 
 gibbon first passed along the beach of England, Ireland and 
 Atland. 
 
 They continued their march to the northern side of Lake 
 Superior and after remaining there a long time they eventually 
 made their way down the Mississippi to the place the sailors 
 of Atland found them. Those sailors of Atland when they 
 returned home with some of the copper, a large fleet was con- 
 structed with oars, and taking some of the Indians with them 
 they pulled up the river Mississippi until they found the mines 
 where the copper was taken from. It took a long time to 
 find the mines and by many years of labor and toil the mines 
 were worked. Now fusing the tin of Atland, which they had 
 used, with the ore of copper, they produced bronze implements, 
 vases and all kinds of arms and other things that metal can 
 be used for. With these they enriched themselves by trade 
 with the world known to them, in gold, silver and the choicest 
 work of hands. When they were near the top of wealth, glory 
 and knowledge, sacred and profane, an army comprised of their 
 princes of wealth and refinement, emigrated to the rich valley 
 of the Nile where some of their ancestors had a settlement. 
 The land was in possession of the sons of the gibbon and the 
 chimpanzee. They were cultivating the soil and using animals 
 that came from the former home of the ancestors of the At- 
 
60 Modernism 
 
 lantians. These princes of wealth secured a large territorial 
 domain from the men who possessed the land, and added to 
 their numbers yearly from their father land, establishing a 
 kingdom which soon became the greatest on earth. Much later 
 some emigrants from Atland settled in Central America and 
 Peru. In much later time an army from upper China, whose 
 ancestors had never learned the theology of the gibbons, and 
 therefore did not count their time by moons, but making months 
 of twenty days of the sun, giving every day a name, crossed 
 in boats along the Aleutian island and overthrew the govern- 
 ment of Mexico. The power and glory the Atlantians attained 
 was due to the little cross composed of two pieces of reed, in 
 the upper end of one, unseen, was a small piece of magnetic 
 iron. This cross floated in an open-mouthed vase filled with 
 water. It was discovered in the age of fire. It was a gift 
 from heaven. It pointed to the pole star, the tree of life in 
 the midst of the garden of heaven. Through its magical power 
 with the crossbar representing the equator it proved the 
 rotundity of the earth. When the Aryans arrived on the shore 
 of the Caspian sea, there were two seas, a northern and southern 
 sea. A low ridge of he Caucasus mountains divided the seas. 
 There was a highway along this low ridge from the eastern 
 side of the Caspian sea, to the western and along the southern 
 base of the Caucasus to the Black sea. The Aryans who first 
 emigrated along the highway to the Black sea, built a city near 
 the latter sea, called Colchis. 
 
 At that time the river Volga flowed into the sea of Azof and 
 the Black sea was not connected with the Mediterranean, When 
 the mouth of the Volga was turned into the Caspian, the low 
 ridge of the Caucasus which divided the two seas was eventually 
 buried by the great body of water pouring into the upper 
 Caspian. Until that time, the highway remained open for 
 the migration of Aryans to the south and southwest. The 
 ancient Greeks migrated from Colchis around the southern side 
 of the Black sea and entered Europe before Asia Minor was 
 separated from Europe by the opening of the Bosphorus. When 
 the story of Jason's voyage was written, the writer of the story 
 had heard the traditions of his ancestors who came from Col- 
 chis. Transformations of every kind were believed in by the 
 writer, that is, he believed that such things had occurred to 
 
Man and the Earth 6 1 
 
 the knowledge of his ancestors who came from Colchis. When 
 the Bosphorus was first opened, it was some time before the 
 channel was cut by the force of the water deep and wide enough 
 to prevent the overflow of the Black sea through the volume 
 of water carried into it by the Volga. 
 
 In years of great snow and rain falls in the north at such 
 times, the low lands of Greece were inundated. There are 
 ancient traditions of these minor floods, as well as the deluge 
 of Deucalion. When the people of many nations had become 
 somewhat intelligent in a general way, having little faith in 
 supernatural occurrences in their own place, the great respect 
 they had for their ancestors came from the traditions or stories 
 that were preserved in the memory of the old people relating 
 to supernatural and impossible occurrences of every descrip- 
 tion. The occurrences were of such a wonderful character that 
 the ancestors in whose days they occurred, or by whom many 
 of the wonders were performed, were regarded as a race that 
 was partly divine; and the reason that such occurrences were 
 not observable in their own day was because the people had 
 lost their divine character through sinfulness. And as in the 
 olden time, every village with a little land attached to it for 
 farms and shepherds, was a kingdom, the descendants of kings 
 and princes were plenty, and every family of any importance, 
 could trace its ancestors back to a king or prince. It was 
 common in every family to keep a record of all their children 
 from one generation to another. Some of these records were 
 traced back to the time of the first ancestor of the family who 
 was a god; that is a demigod. After him, the divine blood 
 kept getting thinner and thinner until it was all lost either by 
 common sin or mixing with blood that contained no part of 
 the divine nature. As the imaginings of the most primitive races 
 who did not know as much about the laws of nature as a cat, 
 were believed to be truths infallible, by an intellectual race of 
 people like the ancient Greeks, what should we think of the 
 superstitious ignorance of the great mass of human beings who 
 lived four thousand years ago? 
 
 But we have wandered far away from the Atlantians who 
 had reached the pinnacle of greatness, glory, wealth and cul- 
 ture, throughout the world. There were earthquakes and vol- 
 canic eruptions at Atland. Some of the island sunk. The 
 
62 Modernism 
 
 great and rich fearing for their wealth and lives emigrated to 
 Egypt where a colony had been planted as stated before. Then 
 came the last great cataclysm burying all the land except a few 
 mountains. In the same hour the Bosphorus was opened by 
 volcanic action and the water of the Black sea rushing on in- 
 undated Greece and Asia Minor causing the famous deluge 
 of Deucalion, as we have described before. There was a cave 
 under a projecting rock near the ancient city of Heliopolis in 
 Phrygia, called Plutonium, from which at all times emanated 
 a dark vapor deadly to man and beast. It was called the 
 mouth of hell at a later time. It was down through this 
 cave or chasm that Pluto carried Proserpine. Deucalion noticed 
 that when the water had subsided that a little stream was run- 
 ning into this chasm, and this circumstance led him to believe 
 that all the water that poured in from the Black sea causing 
 the flood had gone down into the chasm. There was a tradi- 
 tion that Deucalion built a temple near the chasm to com- 
 memorate the flood that had destroyed a large number of 
 human beings in his own day, and that he established the cus- 
 tom of carrying sea water every year at the time the deluge 
 occurred, and pouring the sea water into the chasm. 
 
 The aspiration to solve the mystery of creation and the 
 phenomena of nature, claimed the attention still of all the seek- 
 ers for truth. The principle on which man had from the begin- 
 ning acknowledged a being superior to himself, was that the 
 usefulness of that being to him could not be dispensed with. 
 In their order the moon, stars, sun and fire had been and still 
 were his good demons. He now advanced a step further. Medi- 
 tating on all the bearings of this acknowledged axiom, the 
 natural philosopher said " The sun, moon, stars and fire are 
 gods because they are useful to man. Such being the acknowl- 
 edged fact, rivers, mountains, seas and many other natural 
 objects must be at least, lesser gods." This opinion was in 
 time endorsed and a place was given to it in the theology of 
 the seers. Every step taken in the search for truth, extended 
 the vision and helped to widen the understanding of man. 
 The thinker still meditating, with the knowledge he possessed, 
 his legends lending a glimmer of the evolution of the gods, 
 the thought came to him " May not each of the gods that man 
 has been worshipping be only a special part of the one great 
 
Man and the Earth 63 
 
 God, the whole universe including man? " As all the gods 
 were intelligent beings in man's conception, throughout the 
 whole earth, with no exception on the part of any tribe or race, 
 this idea of god was not intelligible to the understanding of the 
 great multitude, but the understanding of it by those who were 
 educated outside of the priesthood, made it their business to 
 inculcate the doctrine where it was possible to do so. As the 
 mass of humanity worshipped only the gods they could see 
 or feel, the teachers of the new doctrine were compelled to 
 provide a symbol of the idea. This was done by making a 
 wooden figure first and afterwards a stone was cut by a sculptor 
 which represented a man with the legs and feet of a goat, the 
 upper part represented man and the gods, physically and intel- 
 lectually, and the legs and feet represented all animal life and 
 that part of man's nature that is beastly. 
 
 The people of Greece were the first to develop this idea 
 of God. Man being part of the divinity, was equal with the 
 gods that had been worshipped. His physical and intellectual 
 power in every respect manifested in a small degree the great 
 physical and intellectual power manifest in the existence of 
 the universe. And man being equal with the gods must ac- 
 knowledge the equality of all men who are citizens of the state 
 or nation, but in the abstract when applied to those who are 
 not citizens. That was as far as they could go in a political 
 sense. Therefore disavowing the claim of any one to rule 
 by divine right, they established republics. The symbolizing 
 of the ideal god, made in the image and likeness of man and 
 beast, to represent the good and apparently savage proclivities 
 of nature as a whole, became the foundation of a new civiliza- 
 tion. All the fine arts sprung into existence as if created by the 
 wand of a magician. Every great virtue was symbolized in 
 stone in the image of a woman. The poet, philosopher, orator, 
 painter, sculptor and mathematician, were emanations of the 
 new god. The knowledge the people had of their own superi- 
 ority over the rest of mankind, produced a spirit of patriotism 
 and strategic greatness that has never been equaled in the 
 history of mankind. 
 
 If this conception of god had been acceptable to the great 
 human herd, who are led as a shepherd leads his sheep, the 
 power of priestcraft would have been destroyed forever. But 
 
64 Modernism 
 
 the religious customs that the greater part of the human race 
 had observed for thousands of years, had become a part of 
 the life of nations. Rivers, mountains, and every natural object 
 that man deemed useful to him, had become gods only inferior 
 to the sun, moon, stars and fire. The sun and moon being 
 the great objects or, persons whose visible existence and life 
 through their great usefulness to man had caused the estab- 
 lishment of most of the customs observed, could not under 
 these circumstances be substituted by a stone image which was 
 not intended to be an object of worship, but an object of wordy 
 illustration. As all the religious customs were meaningless to 
 the intelligent people who did not believe that the sun and 
 moon were gods, the statue of Pan was intended to be used 
 by the teacher as an illustration in a discourse or lecture. 
 It was the discourse that they intended should substitute votive 
 offerings, sacrifices and religious rites. As the priests were the 
 official actors and beneficiaries of these religious customs and 
 rites, it could not be expected that they would permit the 
 herds to be induced to leave their shepherds whose position in 
 society and whose emoluments were derived from their official 
 direction and action in connection with all religious customs 
 and rites. Under these circumstances the laymen who were the 
 great philosophers of Greece, had to be very careful about 
 saying anything that might be construed as a disbelief in the 
 gods of the people. 
 
 When pantheism was first introduced, there was a man who 
 was versed in all the knowledge of his age, the greatest physician 
 that had ever lived. In his system of practice, he eschewed 
 all the old methods of incantation, charms, exorcisms, and herbs 
 that contained no medicinal properties. He discovered an anti- 
 dote for the poison of serpents, that was one of the most im- 
 portant things that a physician could discover in the age in 
 which he lived. All over the earth in the temperate and torrid 
 zones, reptiles whose bite or sting was fatal to man and beast 
 were very numerous. A cure for the bite of one of these 
 venomous reptiles must have been very valuable and there is 
 a tradition that JEsculapius did cure such bites in some way. 
 This was one feature of his skill as a physician. The most 
 essential thing for a physician to know is to know how to 
 diagnose a case correctly, this is where the skill of ^Esculapius 
 
Man and the Earth 65 
 
 was famous. There were in his day people of great importance 
 as there are in our own day, whose sickness is mostly of 
 the imagination, nervous people are the victims in such cases. 
 His treatment in cases of this kind was to give the patient 
 some simple compound that every physician knew would help 
 to correct any local disturbance, and while he had the patient 
 in charge he talked him into the belief that he would be cured 
 in a few days, as he really had no sickness other than that 
 which came from his manner of living. In this way he inspired 
 the depressed hope of the victim by eloquent language. In 
 our day this method would be called hypnotism and suggestion, 
 and that is what it was. Those who were opulent and those 
 who held positions of dignity and honor, were his patients on 
 account of his fame, and it was his skill in such cases that made 
 him famous. 
 
 The fact probably that he was born under the constellation 
 of the serpents, might be nothing more than a coincidence, from 
 an astrological standpoint. The old star-gazers who first 
 mapped out the heavens did not name the constellation Serpen- 
 tarius because serpents are wise, for they are not wise in any 
 respect. The phrase "As wise as serpents " was an Eden alle- 
 gory. This constellation occupied the positions in the heavens 
 which it now occupies before the allegory of the garden of 
 Eden story was written. It is likely that ^Esculapius was a 
 physician of elder Greece, that is before the deucalion flood. 
 In the constellation of Serpentarius there is a small cluster of 
 four stars that resemble the Hyades, the solstitial colure passed 
 through the equinoctial at that point. It was situated in the 
 mid-heaven equi distant from the poles and midway between 
 the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. In the allegory referred 
 to, this was the tree of knowledge in the midst of the garden 
 of Eden. That is the first fact, the second is where it says, 
 " The serpent was more subtile than any beast of the field 
 which the Lord God had made." This is where ^Esculapius 
 is referred to. Among people who believed in transforma- 
 tions there was a tradition that ^sculapius on more than one 
 occasion had changed himself into a serpent. The great men 
 who lived before histories were written, were supposed in the 
 historic age to have been demi-gods, therefore ^sculapius was 
 worshipped under the symbol of a serpent. In the excursions 
 
66 Modernism 
 
 of the Atlantians as far as Greece, they heard of the great phy- 
 sician, and adopted serpent worship as a part of their religion. 
 We have evidence of this fact from the traditions of the Mandan 
 Indians who are descendants of the vanguard of the gibbon 
 offsprings, who crossed to North America before Europe was 
 separated from America. The Mandan Indians and other tribes 
 who are connected with them, have traditions of a race of 
 men who worshipped a serpent and that these men went down 
 into the ground to dig out copper. They went to the east 
 and never came back again. 
 
 They have many other traditions about these snake wor- 
 shippers and woodchuck and copper diggers. And that they 
 dug so deep that they went down into the ground and never 
 came up again. Some writers who hold an exalted position in 
 the estimation of professional astronomers, imagine no doubt 
 that they had dug very deep in astronomic lore but what has 
 been stated here that the constellations of the Zodiac as well 
 as the majority of the others were known, named and num- 
 bered long before Chaldea had any existence. The civiliza- 
 tion that emanated from the Pantheistic conception of God can 
 claim yEsculapius as its first physician. Notwithstanding that 
 he was worshipped as a demi-god, there was nothing religious 
 in his method of practice. Hippocrates was born and received 
 the rudiments of his knowledge under the shadow of a temple 
 dedicated to ^sculapius in the island of Cos. 
 
 The sect that built that temple emigrated from the home of 
 ^Esculapius, and if there had not been some member of the sect 
 who was able to demonstrate the system and method of the 
 great physician, Hippocrates would not have been a scientific 
 doctor. After the offsprings of the gibbons had ascended the 
 Indus to the mountains, the offsprings of the orang gradually 
 took possession of the whole of India, and in time they filled all 
 the land with their progeny. They also wandered along the 
 shore of the Pacific until they could go no farther north without 
 clothing. Shell fish in this part of the world must have been 
 very plenty for ages as the ancient Chinese put their mouth 
 down into the shell while eating for so great a period of time, 
 that their habit of eating in this manner for so many years, 
 produced that peculiar slanting shape of the eye that it will 
 require many years of a changed habit of eating to destroy this 
 
Man and Hie Earth 67 
 
 race feature of the Chinese. The offsprings of the gibbon that 
 had remained near the north end of the Persian gulf began 
 to ascend the Euphrates and Tigris where they soon began to 
 domesticate all kinds of cattle that had been driven south during 
 the glacial epoch. The same thing occurred to those who had 
 ascended the valley of the Dead sea. In consequence of the 
 great heat that then prevailed throughout all that region, the 
 people did not give up moon worship until they reached the 
 mountain ranges. In Arabia and in the valley of the Dead sea 
 the system of sun worship that prevailed for a long time did 
 not spring from a love of that great natural object. The sun 
 had still nearly all the dread features of Saturn with these 
 people, therefore in place of votive offerings which was the 
 main feature of moon worship, they now propitiated the sun 
 with sacrifices to try to make it more benignant than it was, 
 but their votive offerings were still to the moon. All good 
 actions were performed through fear of the Lord. But it was 
 a long time before they gave up moon worship, even when 
 they began to till the soil. In the course of time many of the 
 young sun worshippers fell in love with the young maidens 
 whose fathers were moon worshippers; and they married them. 
 These marriages had occurred very frequently. The tradition 
 of these marriages comes from the sun worshippers, who are 
 called the sons of God. The maidens are the daughters of men, 
 that is; the daughters of moon worshippers. It should have 
 been written : " The sons of the sun saw the daughters of the 
 moon that they were fair, and they took them wives of all which 
 they chose." It was the sons of the shepherds who married the 
 daughters of the tillers of the soil. These two professions had 
 a very old prejudice against each other. The priests did not 
 consider that vegetables, grain, and fruit, were as good as the 
 meat of cattle, sheep or young lambs, we see that in the alle- 
 gory of Cain and Abel. However in the most ancient tradi- 
 tions of western Asia at the north of the Persian gulf, we see 
 that the mixture of these two professions through marriage 
 was very common. This condition of things continued for a 
 long time, but it seems that a time came when some tribes 
 through obedience to their priests, or through the prejudice of 
 a few tribes of shepherds against the farmers, that these tribes 
 of shepherds ceased to associate with the farmers. These 
 
68 . Modernism 
 
 shepherds were the forefathers of the Jews, the ancient literature 
 of the Jewish people demonstrates the fact that they originally 
 propitiated the malignant features of the sun or Saturn, under 
 the name of El, which in time became Yahvah and Jehovah. 
 
 The greatest blessing that could fall to the lot of a half 
 civilized people happened to the Jews when they were car- 
 ried off to Babylonia. While their captivity lasted their priests 
 had an opportunity to receive an education which they could 
 never have got in Judea. There is one thing that the Jewish 
 Bible is valuable for, it has preserved the names and localities 
 of many places in western Asia that we cannot find elsewhere. 
 There were many books of a similar kind that had a place in 
 the great library that had been collected at Alexandria. The 
 destruction of that library, was one of the greatest losses 
 that mankind ever sustained. Therefore the preservation of this 
 old book by the Jews from the general destruction of ancient 
 literature, makes it a valuable classic, but those who hold that 
 the words in this old book were dictated by the creator of the 
 universe are doing exactly what some of the superficially edu- 
 cated writers of two thousand years ago did in writing their 
 so-called histories. After the destruction of the Alexandrian 
 library, the knowledge contained in the Assyrian, Chaldean and 
 Egyptian histories, was lost to the world save such fragments 
 of Sanchoniathon, Berosus, Manetho, and a few others that 
 were scattered through the works of Christian writers prin- 
 cipally. But the doubt that had existed for many years about 
 the veracity of these old Pagan writers, is gradually being 
 cleared up by the investigation of modern archeologists. 
 
 In an attempt to review the fragments of the history of Ber- 
 osus, we will not go to any length, as the archeological work 
 now being carried on among the ruins of Assyria, will reveal 
 many of the great mysteries of Assyria and Chaldea. As the 
 only thing that has puzzled the students of Berosus is his 
 chronologies, we might remark that it is probable that his 
 Christian interpreters have not correctly quoted his figures 
 regarding the ages of the ten antediluvian kings, and some of 
 those who were the successors of Onnes. The Jewish Bible 
 chronology of the ten ancient kings of Assyria, was obtained 
 by the Jewish priests during their captivity, from the priests 
 of Assyria, when all of the libraries were in a perfect condi- 
 
Man and the Earth 69 
 
 tion. And as the age of all things at that time was reckoned 
 by the moon those antediluvian kings did not on the average 
 live to the age of seventy years. When you note the difference 
 between twenty-seven and three hundred and sixty-five days, 
 you can see that the antediluvians did not live to so very great 
 an age after all. But it is evident that Berosus, used the oldest 
 style of reckoning time in computing the ages of the ten 
 ancients and some others. The oldest style of reckoning time 
 was by the increasing and decreasing moon. Each of these 
 was a year* so that every moon was reckoned as two years. 
 It seems that it was the oldest style that Berosus applied to 
 the ancients. 
 
 There was another style that some shepherd tribes used for 
 a short time. In this, the heavens were divided into four equal 
 parts, commencing when the sun entered the first point of the 
 constellation of the ram. Three months constituted the year. 
 The system that some of the agriculturalists first used, was the 
 division of the year into two parts, summer and winter, each 
 constituting a year. The fact is, that very few men who held 
 positions of responsibility in ancient times, reached the age of 
 seventy years. It is now understood that Sanchoniathon lived 
 about twelve hundred years before our era. Sanchoniathon 
 states, according to some of the fragments we have of his 
 history, that Phoenicia, was founded by a son of Autochthon. 
 Plato says, Autochthon or some such name was one of the kings 
 of Atland. He calls Atland, Atlantis, but that is only a mis- 
 take of his memory. Long before Pythagoras came to Cro- 
 tona, fire had been a sacred element throughout large regions 
 of the earth, so that, in his system of astronomy, where he 
 makes the hearth of the universe, the centre around which the 
 sun and all the planets revolve, he did not then introduce any- 
 thing new as far as the fire behind the earth was concerned, 
 for fire had been regarded the supreme god by the Aryan priests 
 in every part of the world where any of them were performing 
 their sacred mysteries. Pythagoras was dead about a hundred 
 years before Plato had heard about Atland. In his system 
 of astronomy Pythagoras makes the Autochthon perform a 
 very important part. The central point was fire called the 
 Hearth of the Universe, which has been referred to before 
 
 * A distinct period of time. 
 
70 Modernism 
 
 (like the public hearth of perpetual fire maintained in the 
 prytaneum of a Grecian city) or the watch tower of Zeus. 
 Around it revolved from west to east, ten divine bodies with 
 equal velocities, but in symmetrical movement or regular dance. 
 Outermost was the circle of fixed stars, called Olympus, and 
 composed of fire like the center. Within this came successively, 
 with orbits more and more approximating to the center, the five 
 planets, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus and Mercury: next, the 
 sun, moon, and the earth. Lastly, betwen the earth and the 
 central fire, the Autochthon or counter earth. Making a total 
 represented by the sacred number ten, the symbol of perfec- 
 tion and totality. 
 
 The sun was not self-luminous, it was conceived as a glassy 
 disk, receiving its light from the central fire and reflecting it 
 upon the earth, so long as the two were on the same side of 
 the central fire. The earth revolved in an orbit obliquely in- 
 tersecting that of the sun, and in twenty-four hours, round the 
 central fire, always turning the same side towards that fire, 
 the alteration of day and night was occasioned by the earth, 
 being during a part of its revolution, on the same side of the 
 central fire with the sun, and thus receiving light reflected from 
 him and during the remaining part of her revolution on the 
 opposite side of him, so that she received no light at all from 
 him. The earth with the autochthon made this revolution in 
 one day, the moon in one month; the sun, with the planets 
 Mercury and Venus, in one year; the planets Mars, Jupiter and 
 Saturn, in longer periods respectively, according to their dis- 
 tances from the center; lastly, the outermost circle of the fixed 
 stars (the Olympus) in some unknown period of very long 
 duration. He also imagined that in the rotatory movement of 
 the sun and all the heavenly bodies, that they gave out celestial 
 music, called " The Music of the Spheres." The counter earth 
 or the autochthon of Pythagoras, in his system of astronomy, 
 seems to have been a misconception. It is generally believed 
 that Pythagoras spent some time in Egypt, as it was there that 
 many of the Greek and Roman scholars went to finish their 
 education. 
 
 It is quite certain that he did not get the idea there that the 
 sun is not a self-luminous body. The Hearth of the universe 
 was a religious conception, it was an Aryan idea originally, 
 
Man and the Earth 71 
 
 but it was in the mythic mysteries of Persia, that it was fully 
 developed, and from there it passed to Greece and all the rest 
 of Europe and Asia Minor; but the sun as the great self-lumin- 
 ous god was still worshipped by the people in its majestic 
 strength or in allegory by the priests. It is quite certain 
 however that Pythagoras got his idea of the autochthon either 
 in Egypt or Phoenicia, for it represents either Atland or the 
 American continent. It is a fact that many philosophers be- 
 lieved that the earth was globular in shape, and if that belief 
 had not been proved to be a fact, Copernicus would never have 
 been known. Columbus did not have the smallest conception 
 of the extent of the American continent. His introduction of 
 the institution of slavery as one of his first acts as governor 
 over people who had treated him with the greatest kindness, 
 will ever offset his good work; and the punishment he received 
 through the enmity of others, was no more than he deserved 
 for that ignoble act. Although it would follow in time, yet the 
 honor and glory of demonstrating the fact that the earth is 
 a globe in shape, goes to that intrepid, resolute and immortal 
 sailor Magellan. Before Pythagoras, Thales had learned from 
 the Phoenicians, that the earth is a sphere, that the moon's 
 light is reflected from the sun, that the stars are fire, that the 
 equator is cut obliquely by the ecliptic, and perpendicularly by 
 the meridian. And he determined the position of the stars 
 from the lesser bear by which the Phoenicians guided their 
 ships. But modern writers say, that " It is difficult to conceive 
 how Thales unacquainted with instruments could render any 
 assistance to navigators." The great mistake is believing that 
 the Phoenicians had no instruments. If the original copy of 
 Sanchoniathon's history had been preserved, we would have 
 known something more than we now know about the knowl- 
 edge of the Phoenicians. It is claimed also that navigators 
 in their voyages never lost sight of the land. To some extent 
 this was true for some time after Assyria had utterly destroyed 
 the Phoenicians, for the few ship owners who preserved their 
 vessels after that calamity became pirates. After tin had been 
 discovered in Europe and Asia there was no inducement to 
 navigators to go outside of the Straits of Gibraltar. This con- 
 dition of things lasted so long that the Atlantic side of the earth 
 became wrapped in mystery. In fact that ocean became a myth 
 
7 2 Modernism 
 
 to the Greeks. Pytheas of Marseilles, an astronomer and 
 geographer about the time of Alexander the Great, took several 
 voyages for the purpose of obtaining geographical and astro- 
 nomical information. He went as far north as Iceland, and 
 wrote a book giving a full account of all his travels and the 
 discoveries he made, but Strabo, a Greek historian and geogra- 
 pher, who wrote a few years before the beginning of our era, 
 and was considered in his time a great historian and geographer, 
 treated the accounts of Pytheas as fabulous, yet nearly every- 
 thing that Pytheas wrote is true, and the map of the earth 
 drawn from the accounts of Strabo, is the worst that has ever 
 been described. A hundred and fifty years before Strabo, in 
 Alexandria, Ptolemy, had made a map of the earth which was 
 superior to Strabo's, and became responsible for a system of 
 astronomy in which the earth is a sphere. 
 
 When Homer wrote, he had heard of pygmies in Africa and 
 several islands in the Atlantic ocean. So that, the farther we 
 go back before our era, the writers seem to have had a better 
 knowledge of the Atlantic ocean than those who wrote near the 
 time of Strabo. It is evident that ships could not traverse the 
 Atlantic up to Iceland as they did in ancient times, without a 
 compass. The early Greeks got their knowledge of geography 
 and astronomy from Egypt and Phoenicia, and the ancestors 
 of the Phoenicians would not have dared to venture their lives 
 on the Atlantic if they had not previously sailed and oared 
 boats on an inland sea like the Caspian. Egypt, Phoenicia and 
 Etruria,* were colonized by people who had reached a higher 
 state of civilization, in many respects, than the people of any 
 other country. It seems reasonable to believe that the people 
 who colonized these three countries, came from Atland. And 
 although the memory of that island would have been lost to 
 the world if some serious man like Plato had not written about 
 it, still we know that the civilization of those countries were 
 not developed from the earliest inhabitants of either of them, 
 as no great civilization has ever been developed from the orig- 
 inal inhabitants of any country. 
 
 * According to Sanchoniathon, one of the earliest traditions of the 
 Phoenicians was that their ancestors came to Phoenicia on account of 
 their original home being destroyed by an earthquake. 
 
Man and the Earth 73 
 
 When At and his brothers departed from the Caspian sea, 
 the Sanscrit language had not become a written language. The 
 Esthonians came from some of the people that remained near 
 the Baltic, to eat shell fish rather than follow their friends 
 out on the western island with At. Their speech indicates 
 about how far the Sanscrit had developed when the rebellion 
 of At occurred. It required just such a resolute, intelligent 
 man to lay the foundation of the first commercial civilization 
 that the earth knew.* Before an attempt was made to measure 
 any portion of the surface of the earth, taking the sea level 
 as a basis, there must have been old traditions of a western 
 continent to suggest it. It was those traditions that suggested 
 to Ptolemy's astronomers the globular shape of the earth, and 
 not the talk of Pythagoras. The attempt to measure a portion 
 of the earth's surface was projected for the purpose of verifying 
 the basic principles of the Ptolemaic system of astronomy and 
 geography. 
 
 As all of the very ancient people did not have the same ex- 
 perience in their development, some phases of their observations 
 received much more attention in one place or locality than in 
 others. When the moon had become their sky Ma, the stars 
 soon became her little children, and eventually the watching 
 and talking about the stars developed that phase of religion 
 called Sabism. In the valleys of the Euphrates and the Tigris, 
 this seems to have received a more lasting impression than 
 in any other part of the world. It was observed that the 
 planets did not remain in the same part of the sky all the time 
 as the stars did, and they therefore called them wanderers, as 
 they seemed to wander about from one place to another. In 
 time the most brilliant stars received names that seemed to 
 people appropriate. All the stars little and big were living 
 beings, and as only a small number of them were named, or 
 their localities noted, when meteors were observed to move or 
 fly from one part of the sky to another, they thought that these 
 meteors were some of the unnoted and unnamed stars that were 
 acting as messengers from some of the greater personages of 
 the sky to each other, therefore the name messenger or angel 
 
 *It was the nobility and most wealthy of the emigrants from Atland 
 that went to Egypt, the enterprising shippers and mechanics went to 
 Phoenicia, Tyre, Sidon and other places. 
 
74 Modernism 
 
 was given to them. The most brilliant star in each of the con- 
 stellations of the Zodiac was called an angel at a later time. 
 At a still later time, when it was forgotten why meteors were 
 called angels, all the stars were called angels; and when the 
 stars were divided into constellations, each constellation took 
 the name that had been given to the most brilliant star in the 
 new constellation. By this means the heaven was peopled 
 with a host of angels which were divided into classes, called 
 angels, archangels, cherubims and seraphims. All these beings 
 constituted the host of heaven and were supposed to be only a 
 little lower than the sun and moon, the supreme gods of day 
 and night. Eventually when the fact had been forgotten that 
 these angelic names referred to stars and constellations, in those 
 regions of the earth where the people were not star-gazers, and 
 where they slept through the night, it was supposed that these 
 angels, archangels, cherubims and seraphims were a class of 
 beings who existed and had their home in the unseeable part of 
 heaven where the unseeable God resided, and that some of 
 them on certain occasions visited the earth as messengers from 
 the unseeable God. In the Chaldean religion the Angel Gabriel 
 was the angel of spring. When the Jews were captives in 
 Babylonia, their priests adopted a part of the Chaldean system 
 of astrology and thereby gave a place to angels of all classes 
 in their religion. As the Christian religion is a mixture of the 
 Jewish and Pagan religions, the angels found a home in our 
 religion also quite naturally. It was during the prevalence of 
 Sabism, that several nations adopted some of the stars or planets 
 in their astrology as the fathers of their nations. The Phoeni- 
 cian name for the planet Saturn was Israel. 
 
 When that nation conquered a large part of what we now 
 call Palestine, they gave this name to the whole country; hence 
 the name Israelite, after Jacob's name had been changed. The 
 Aryans seem to have had the greatest advantages of any people 
 we have any positive knowledge of. Their knowledge of astron- 
 omy was superior to that of any other people, and there can 
 be no doubt that they were the first discoverers of the cycle 
 of eclipses. Although there must have been some knowledge 
 which did not extend to so long a period as nineteen years, 
 which helped them to predict an eclipse of the moon or sun, 
 but more especially the moon, some little time before it oc- 
 
Man and the Earth 75 
 
 curred. But when it was ascertained beyond any possible doubt, 
 that the eclipses of the sun and moon repeated themselves every 
 nineteen years, they were in a position that is, the priests of 
 ancient India to exalt themselves above the common people 
 so high, that they must have been regarded as at least demi-gods. 
 Now think of the horror with which an eclipse of the moon 
 was regarded where people had not the smallest conception 
 of what was the cause of it, but believing now, as the priest 
 was able to tell beforehand when it would occur, that the priest 
 had brought it about by witchcraft, and that he could do it 
 at any time he saw fit to exercise his power. What a lever 
 this was in the hands of an impostor to elevate himself in the 
 mind of the poor ignorant, superstitious human biped. It was 
 a long time before the knowledge spread to every part of the 
 partially civilized world, but it eventually was discovered by 
 those who did not use the knowledge for such a debasing pur- 
 pose. However, the seers and priests of western Asia, Egypt, 
 and eastern Europe, were always in communication with the 
 priests and seers of India, and they made the same use of their 
 knowledge of the cycle of eclipses, as did the priests of India. 
 Although it is certain that Thales was familiar with the cycle 
 of eclipses, " yet a century later the Greek priests caused Anaxa- 
 goras to be thrown into prison for daring to make his knowledge 
 known on these periods of eclipses." Advanced as Greece was 
 in some respects, still the priests who should have warned the 
 Greek army of the eclipse which occurred while it was before 
 Syracuse, and caused its defeat, were not held responsible for 
 the disaster. Having a monopoly of the science, no layman 
 was allowed to reveal his knowledge of the subject. Anaxa- 
 goras was dead, and as only a few persons had his treatise in 
 their hands they dare not speak about it, even if they had 
 thought about it at the time. Five centuries later, Pliny wrote 
 in his natural history: "It is long since the means was dis- 
 covered of calculating beforehand not merely the day or night, 
 but even the very hour at which an eclipse of the sun or moon 
 is to take place, yet the majority of the lower orders still remain 
 firmly convinced that these phenomena are brought about by 
 enchantment." 
 
 The Brahmins of India made this cycle, the pivot on which 
 the birth, prosperity and destruction of the earth hung. The 
 
76 Modernism 
 
 divine year consists of six hundred and fifty-eight years, there- 
 fore the lifetime of the world will consist of as many years as 
 there are months in the divine year; that is, six thousand five 
 hundred and eighty-five years, one hundred and twenty days. 
 At the end of this period the human race will be brought to 
 judgment, and the world will be destroyed by fire. 
 
 Preposterous and nonsensical as the whole system is from 
 beginning to end, yet every nation and every religion, Brah- 
 minism, Buddhism, Judaism and Christianity, made it a part of 
 its prophetic declaration. This merely shows how mankind 
 has been imposed upon by a lot of jugglers, fakirs and im- 
 posters. The time they set for the end of the world, was about 
 the time when the Christian gospel and epistle writers were 
 warning the people that it might occur any night or day. But 
 the Indian seers finding that it did not come off, made a new 
 declaration placing themselves in harmony with the western 
 incarnation of Augustus, whose prophets promised a period of 
 peace and good will among men and nations. This postponed 
 the dreadful day to a thousand years more, and this prediction 
 was believed by the dupes in the western world. India has 
 been the birthplace of all the religious tidal waves that have 
 swept over the whole habitable earth. All the rites, ceremonies, 
 sacraments and doctrines, except circumcision (which was born 
 in Atland), originated in India, and were carried to every part 
 of the earth east and west.* 
 
 As the magician is always trying to invent new tricks to keep 
 himself busy, so the Indian seer for thousands of years has 
 been exercising his mind with religious problems. But no idea 
 that has ever been evolved from the brain of man has had such 
 influence as the invention of the Avatar doctrine. The Avatar 
 doctrine was promulgated by the Brahmins of India who evi- 
 dently had kept a record of the events that had transpired in 
 their own country. Consulting the record of past events, it 
 appeared to them that at the end of every six hundred years 
 or thereabout, that important changes occurred in their affairs, 
 and that in some instances these changes were brought about 
 largely by some man. Now using the cycle of eclipses, they 
 applied it to this number of years, and they ascertained that 
 
 *Sabianism may have had its rise in India, and was afterwards more 
 fully developed in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates. 
 
Man and the Earth 77 
 
 by taking as many months as there were days in the cycle of 
 eclipses, that it would give them six hundred and fifty-eight 
 years. Using this result as a basis, they called it a divine year, 
 at the end of which important changes would be brought about. 
 To give the divine year a proper send off, they declared that 
 the second person of their Trinity had been and would continue 
 to be incarnated every six hundred and fifty-eight years in the 
 womb of a virgin for the purpose of saving and redeeming the 
 world from sin. This doctrine eventually spread throughout 
 the whole earth into every country. It was declared that all 
 of the changes in human affairs that were brought about by 
 these Avatars, were of great benefit to mankind. 
 
 India, Persia, Arabia, Chaldea, Assyria, and Egypt, each of 
 these nations had had its Avatars. The life history of these 
 Avatars indicate that they were in most respects personifica- 
 tions of the sun. While the biographies of all of them were 
 more or less imitations of the first one, yet each one had some 
 special trait of character that had not been spoken of in any 
 of the others, in each case there was a man who seemed to 
 represent this special part, who had done something either as 
 a physical or mental hero to entitle him to be recognized and 
 stand as a nominal but not a real manifestor. The real mani- 
 festor in every case was an eclectic character. He was manu- 
 factured by a college or counsel of priests who used as much 
 of his history as they thought judicious, and his real name if 
 it helped to develop the system of ethics and theology, or the 
 civic revolution which they favored. 
 
 Outside of these, the old allegories and the old and new 
 philosophy and ethics were written as descriptive of the new in- 
 carnation's words and actions. Each incarnation who personi- 
 fied the sun, was born when the sun was in its winter solstice, 
 on the twenty-fifth of December, called Christmas day, of the 
 Virgin of the Zodiac, in the stable of Argus, in the cave in 
 which the moon was born. These places are all up in the sky, 
 where also is the manger in which the newborn god was laid. 
 And so in like manner are all the other localities in which the 
 sun as a god had been represented in the old systems to have 
 had special experiences. Before proceeding further, it should 
 be understood that the Indian philosophers did not control the 
 predictions of the seers of Egypt and some of the western 
 
78 Modernism 
 
 nations, the sibyls and astrologers of the western part of the 
 then known world, predicted that at about the time of the be- 
 ginning of our era, that a period of peace and justice would 
 be ushered in that would reign a thousand years.* The Indian 
 prediction was that the world would come to an end about that 
 time. After the death of Alexander the Great, who died three 
 hundred twenty-three years before the beginning of our era, the 
 governorship of Egypt and a part of what is now called Pales- 
 tine, was secured by Ptolemy Soter, who having suppressed 
 a revolt in Judea, had removed from that country a large body 
 of its inhabitants to people the new city of Alexandria which 
 had been laid out by the great conqueror. The city had already 
 been colonized by a large number of Greek families and it was 
 in a flourishing condition. 
 
 Plato having written on so many subjects that his books 
 formed a sort of encyclopedia, in a limited degree, his books 
 were consulted on every question that arose among the Greeks, 
 particularly on questions of speculative philosophy. As he had 
 received from some of the Egyptian priests during one of his 
 visits to Egypt, an insight into the Avatar doctrine, without 
 referring to this doctrine as a basis on which to build a new 
 religion, he simply suggested the propriety of a number of 
 well informed and well disposed men getting together and when 
 they had selected the best precepts known to man from all the 
 older religions, and philosophies, to establish an eclectic code 
 of morals, and build a new religion which would contain such 
 things as were generally known to be the truth as near as 
 possible, and then declare it to be infallible and enforce its 
 observance by law throughout the land. If there should happen 
 to be some of its philosophy untrue, yet because of its efficacy 
 in producing social order and morality, it would be right to 
 maintain such a religion as the only true one until a better one 
 had been discovered.f 
 
 ^Augustus was the Messiah of the western prophets who ushered in a 
 period of peace and good will to all mankind. The eastern prophecy 
 was that the world would come to an end. 
 
 fPlato having examined the history and the basis on which all the 
 religious systems existed in his day, concluded that there was no truth 
 in the divine pretentions of any of them, that religion was mostly super- 
 stition, and the only way that it was possible to have a religion of any 
 value, was to have one established by a council of wise men. 
 
Man and the Earth 7 9 
 
 So Ptolemy, believing that any time would be a proper time 
 for organizing a religious system of this kind, built a large 
 temple called the Grand Serapion, and the statue of Serapis 
 which the king brought from Sinope, was deposited in the 
 temple. It was said that the king performed all this work in 
 obedience to a revelation. He established an eclectic religion 
 for the mixed population of Alexandria, who were Greeks, 
 Egyptians and imported Jews. The culture and refinement of 
 Greece was transferred to the new city of Alexandria, and it 
 became a great seat of learning. All the arts and every branch 
 of science flourished. An immense library was collected; the 
 several forms of astral worship were represented and schools 
 for the full dissemination of Greek philosophy. Schools also 
 of oriental gnosticism were permitted. Alexandria soon became 
 a great cosmopolitan city. 
 
 Encouraged by the liberal policy of Philadelphus, the second 
 Ptolemy, a body of learned Jews who had been educated in the 
 Greek schools, founded a college for the education of their own 
 people which was ultimately known as the university of Alex- 
 andria. One of the projects of Philadelphus, was to have the 
 sacred writings of all nations placed in his library. Seventy 
 of the best Greek and Hebrew professors of that institution, 
 rendered the Hebrew sacred records into the Greek language. 
 This translation is known as the Septuagint or Alexandrian 
 Version of the Old Testament. The religious system organized 
 by Ptolemy Soter, was soon embraced by the great body of 
 the Greek people living in Egypt, Asia Minor and the islands. 
 The title of Serapis was " Our Lord and Savior Serapis/' He 
 was a composite character, he represented as a composite indi- 
 vidual, Dionysius, Mercury, Hermes and Osiris. Ptolemy de- 
 clared that Serapis had appeared to him in a vision. Among the 
 philosophers at Alexandria whose doctrines had received special 
 attention was Pythagoras. The asceticism practiced by the 
 teachers of this philosophy was in harmony with the general 
 characteristics of the Jewish race and a number of them or- 
 ganized a sect to which the name of Essens was given. Being 
 at all times in communication with their brethren in Judea 
 some of the professors from time to time visited the fatherland 
 and introduced the doctrines of the Alexandrian Jews and by 
 
8o Modernism 
 
 this means the third sect of the Jews was established. Before 
 this sect had been established, a number of the Alexandrian 
 Jews who were professors in the Greek schools had joined 
 with those of other nations in the worship of Serapis and had 
 been ordained priests. Most of these belonged to that branch 
 of the church that came under the name of Therapeutea or 
 healers. 
 
 There is no record of any nation of people where science, 
 art, literature and philosophy were cultivated to so high a 
 degree as by the Greeks. Philosophers, poets of every style 
 of composition, orators, sculptors, painters, musicians, generals, 
 mathematicians, astronomers, geographers, dramatists, physi- 
 cians, architects, and every other profession was cultivated to 
 the highest degree of excellence up to their own time. At last 
 when their country fell under the invincible legions of Rome, 
 the intellectual gain to Rome was much greater than their 
 material profit. The Greek philosophers and scientists had by 
 the best means it is possible to use, searched and investigated 
 all the professed authorities on the history of mankind in order 
 to find if possible the truth in this domain, and ended in their 
 search by admitting that they knew nothing only what they 
 had gained by experience, and that no system of philosophy 
 that existed in the world was perfect, although they had exam- 
 ined every one that made any pretention to be authorized by 
 God or man. 
 
 It was stated a short time ago that the Jewish priests while 
 captives in Assyria, possessed themselves of all the allegories 
 which we find in the book called the Bible. It would be silly 
 to attempt to explain all of the allegories, but it 1 will be 
 necessary to explain a part of Genesis in order to show that 
 the same thing can be done with all of the book that is not 
 strictly historical. " The creation," says Clemens Alexandrinus 
 " was concluded in six days, for the motions of the sun from 
 solstice to solstice was complete in six months." The man 
 who wrote that sentence was the most learned and the most 
 prolific writer of the early Christian Fathers. If he believed 
 that the six days of the creation as recorded in Genesis, was 
 an allegory, he must have believed that the whole of Genesis 
 is allegorical as it certainly is. According to the interpretation 
 
Man and the Earth 81 
 
 of Clemens Alexandrinus, the first day's labor would begin 
 when the sun enters the sign of the Goat, " in the beginning 
 (the gods Elohim) created the heavens and the earth.* And 
 
 * When the ancestors of the Aryans who had wandered up the Indus 
 and over the highlands into central Asia had reached that country the 
 sun was shining vertically on latitude about thirty-five degrees north and 
 south. It is likely that the great weight of ice, snow and water at and 
 near the poles caused the inclination of the axis to extend to about forty 
 degrees north and south, before the inclination began to diminish. In 
 the declining movement, it is also likely that before the inclination had 
 settled down permanently to twenty-three and one-half degrees, that it 
 had fallen back to about twenty degrees and then gradually come up 
 to twenty-three and one-half. As the atmosphere in central Asia had 
 become too cold for comfort at this time, nearly all of the tribes that 
 had not already migrated to Asia Minor, eastern and western Europe, 
 now began to recross the highlands and come back into India. These 
 and the other tribes that went to Asia Minor and Europe were the true 
 white races. These people had passed through all the phases of nature 
 worship and had begun to speculate on the origin and nature of things. 
 The book o4 Genesis gives their ideas in relation to the structure of the 
 earth, the stellar universe and the solar system. The fact that their 
 first man had only one wife and what is written in relation to the mar- 
 riage state shows that they had arrived at a high state of social life. 
 When that story became the property of the Jewish priests during their 
 captivity in Babylonia, it was something entirely new to them. The Jews 
 were and had always been polygamists, and it is not likely that when 
 the story was read to them after they returned to Palestine, that it had 
 much influence on their domestic habits or customs for a good while. 
 When that story was written all the astronomical constellations with the 
 exception of a very few, existed as they are to-day, but some of them 
 under other names. But there has been a woeful mistake made in the 
 interpretation of the first verse. This comes from the fact, that the 
 Jewish priest who copied it from the sacred writings of the Babylonians, 
 did not understand what that first verse meant. As stated before the 
 writer of the story was a worshipper of nature, therefore in beginning 
 he wrote, " In the beginning the gods made the heaven and the earth." 
 The general interpretation of this verse is, that the substance of which 
 the universe is composed did not exist before the act of creating the 
 whole in a sort of chaotic or formless condition was consummated that 
 all this substance was created from nothing. The verse does not say 
 so, but such has been the interpretation. When this story was written 
 the writer believed that the earth was flat, that the stars were small 
 lamps created for the purpose of giving some light to the people of the 
 earth, that there was a great fire called the hearth of the universe behind 
 the earth, from which the little lamps (the stars) replenished their light, 
 that the sun got its light and heat from this great central fire and that 
 from the sun shining on the moon, the moon reflected the light on the 
 earth. This was the supposed condition of things when he was writing 
 the story, but when he said that " In the beginning the gods created or 
 made the heaven and the earth," he did not think it necessary to say, 
 " Now I will tell you how they did it," but that first verse contains all 
 that he specifically related afterwards in relation to the formation of the 
 heaven and earth. That first verse was not intended to convey the mean- 
 ing that the universe was made or created from nothing. This story 
 passed from central Asia or India through the communication of the 
 Aryan priests with the priests of other nations. 
 
82 Modernism 
 
 the earth was without form and void, and the spirit of god 
 moved upon the face of the waters." The constellation being 
 a sea goat is sufficient to show that this verse refers to the sun 
 in this part of the heavens. "And God said let there be light 
 and there was light. And God saw the light that it was good; 
 and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called 
 the light day, and the darkness he called night. And the even- 
 ing and the morning were the first day." People who do not 
 believe that the laws of nature can be set aside by the word 
 of any one, usually say when speaking of that first evening 
 and morning, how could there be daylight without the sun? 
 And of course there could not, but the writer of this allegory 
 believed there could. 
 
 You will remember that an old philosopher seeing the fiery 
 appearance of the eastern and western heavens before and after 
 sunrise and sunset, and the northern lights when the sun was 
 below the horizon, thought these lights were the tops of a 
 blazing fire that was behind the earth, and that this fire was 
 called the hearth of the universe. Well, the man who wrote 
 these verses believed in that hearth fire, from which the sun 
 received its light and reflected it upon the earth as did Pythag- 
 oras and all the priests who kept a perpetual fire on their 
 altars. "And God said let there be a firmament in the midst 
 of the waters. And God made the firmament and divided the 
 waters which were under the firmament from the waters which 
 were above the firmament; and it was so. And God called the 
 firmament heaven. And the evening and the morning were the 
 second day." The sun has now entered the constellation of the 
 Water Bearer, and God (the sun) is now regulating the waters. 
 But the firmament spoken of here, is like the light without the 
 sun. The glassy firmament with windows in it to let the waters 
 through when it rains. Although the writer believed that, still 
 the firmament never was there. The sun now enters the con- 
 stellation of the Fishes on the third day, and the seas and the 
 land, the grass and trees make their appearance. If there had 
 been snow on the ground as there usually is in a great part of 
 the world in February, it would be clearing off now just before 
 the month of March. "And God said let there be lights in the 
 firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night, and 
 let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and for 
 
Man and the Earth 83 
 
 years. And God set them to rule over the day and night, and 
 to divide the light from the darkness." On the fourth day 
 the sun has entered the constellation of Aries, the moon is now 
 returning from the north and is traveling in the sun's track; 
 apparently, the sun now begins to act on vegetation. It was 
 supposed that the moon and stars had considerable influence 
 on vegetation. The sun, moon and stars are now the undis- 
 puted sovereigns of day and night, and in an allegory it could 
 be said that they were created on the fourth day. On the fifth 
 day the sun enters the sign of the Bull, and the constellations 
 that have not been spoken of but which the sun has passed 
 through, are now spoken of such as whales, fishes and winged 
 fowls; and on the sixth day the bull is referred to as the 
 cattle. And on the sixth day all the animals that had not been 
 created before are now finished when the sun enters the con- 
 stellation of the twins; these were originally male and female, 
 and they now stand for Adam and Eve. The celestial and ter- 
 restrial paradises are now open to the beholder. The earth is 
 clothed with vegetation; the air is fragrant with the perfume 
 of flower, fruit, expanding stem and waving foliage of every 
 variety. Gold and silver-lined clouds bank the western sky as 
 the sun is descending behind the mountain peaks. Evening twi- 
 light comes and the reflection of the sun's rays off the western 
 ocean (called tropical light), mantles the celestial paradise with 
 a quivering fan of changeful hue. On the seventh day the sun 
 enters the sign of the Crab, it has now reached its highest 
 altitude in the heavens; the work of creation is ended. And as 
 the sun seems to rest a few days before it begins its southern 
 declination, it could be said in an allegory that the lord (the 
 sun) rested on the seventh day. 
 
 A new act now begins as a sequel to what had been un- 
 finished in the foregoing allegory. In all the allegories the sun 
 assumes the qualities of the signs it is passing through. In the 
 constellation of the Crab there are two small constellations called 
 the Asses. The chaldaic name for the ass may be translated 
 Muddiness that is, dust mixed with water; this refers to Adam 
 being made of the slime of the earth. " The Lord God formed 
 man of the slime of the ground and breathed into his nostrils 
 the breath of life, and man became a living soul." 
 
84 Modernism 
 
 From man's first existence on the earth up to the time of 
 Socrates, it had been believed that the shadow or shade of man 
 was his soul, as has been stated in another part of this book. 
 We have evidence of the fact that it required a great amount 
 of discussion to discredit that idea before it was admitted that 
 the soul consists of the breath. Before this result had been 
 reached, it had been the belief of the most advanced communi- 
 ties, that the shades of animals and evil beings of the imagination 
 took possession of the bodies of people and made them sick, 
 crazy, deaf, dumb and deformed. It was believed that all these 
 malignant shades knew what the people did while they were in 
 the bodies of people, and in order that those possessed might get 
 these evil shades out of them, they confessed their sins, believing 
 that they would have no further trouble. If this failed, they 
 called on the priest who tried to exorcise the evil shades by 
 incantation and other performances. When the belief became 
 popular that the breath was the soul; the breath or soul leaving 
 the body of a dying person immediately entered the atmosphere 
 and it was liable to be inhaled by the nearest person or animal 
 to the person who died. As almost every one was more or 
 less sinful, it was believed that the Lord conducted the soul 
 or breath of the sinner to the mouth of some animal who 
 inhaled it.* If the person had been a great sinner the soul 
 passed at the death of the first animal on to another. This 
 transmigration of the soul of the sinner from one animal to 
 another or from the body of a good man to that of another 
 good man, as a doctrine, had been outgrown by the early 
 Greeks and a few other nations, but Pythagoras imbibing it 
 either in India or Egypt caused it to spread again through 
 Greece and Italy. However, when the priests of Assyria or 
 Chaldea, wrote the allegories contained in Genesis, it was be- 
 lieved by them that the breath is the soul, this fact is evident. 
 
 We will now continue our allegory: "And the Lord God 
 planted a garden eastward in Eden and there he put the man 
 whom he had formed." You will recollect that the constellation 
 of the Twins stood for Adam and Eve on the sixth day, but 
 Adam has been removed to the garden of Eden, as the sun had 
 advanced westward since that time, so we now find Adam in 
 the constellation of Bootes, Bootes was the first man who was 
 
 *This idea is the foundation of the doctrine of Metempsychosis. 
 
Man and the Earth 85 
 
 ever placed in the heavens. What the original name of that 
 man was we don't know. It may have been Ad or At. "And 
 out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that 
 is pleasant to the sight, and good for food. The tree of life 
 also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of 
 good and evil." The tree of life in the midst of the garden, is 
 the pole star, around which all the stars that can be seen, 
 seem to revolve; that this interpretation is true will be seen 
 later. The tree of knowledge of good and evil, is near the tail 
 of the serpent in the constellation of Serpentarious. The sol- 
 stitial colure passes through the equinoctial at that point. It is 
 situated in the mid-heaven, equi-distant from the poles and 
 midway between the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. The four 
 cardinal lines or streams start from this point in the heavens; 
 these are called the four rivers. Only the most expert astrol- 
 ogers knew where the solstitial colure passes through the 
 equinoctial, so that this could be called the tree of knowledge. 
 In the ancient theology which these allegories represent, when 
 the sun crossed the line in September it went down into the 
 dominion of evil, but it was in the good domain until it did 
 go down below the line. 
 
 This is one part of the interpretation, there is another which 
 comes later. "And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, 
 of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of 
 the tree* of knowledge of good and evil thou shall not eat of 
 it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shall surely 
 die." "And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon 
 Adam, and he slept;" "And he took one of his ribs and closed 
 up the flesh instead thereof;" "And the rib which the Lord 
 God had taken from man made he a woman and brought her 
 unto the man. Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast 
 of the field which the Lord God had made, and he said unto 
 the woman, Yea, hath God said ye shall not eat of every tree 
 of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, we 
 may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit 
 of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, 
 Ye shall not eat of it. Neither shall you touch it, lest you die; 
 and the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die, 
 for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof then your 
 
 *The Jewish idea of the forbidden fruit was the organs of generation. 
 
86 Modernism 
 
 eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods knowing good 
 and evil." In the ninth verse of the second chapter, God said 
 that the tree of life was in the midst of the garden; in the third 
 verse of the third chapter, the woman said that the tree of 
 knowledge was in the midst of the garden. One of these state- 
 ments would seem to contradict the other, but it does not. The 
 pole star, the tree of life is in the midst of the whole heaven 
 north of the equator. The tree of knowledge is midway be- 
 tween both poles and between the east and the west, as the sun 
 seems to move. Where the allegory says that the Lord caused 
 Adam to fall into a deep sleep it refers to the night time when 
 we all ought to sleep, and when the sun is below the horizon. 
 But the moon is up now and full, and she was called Ma, and 
 therefore represents the woman in the allegory in this verse. 
 The sun representing Adam is shining below the horizon, and 
 a ray (or rib) from the sun makes the moon (the woman), 
 appear. As the sun lost nothing by casting its ray on the 
 moon, neither was Adam injured by the surgical operation, as 
 it was an allegorical one. The wisdom of the serpent repre- 
 sented here refers to /Esculapius the wisest and most expert 
 physician that the world had ever known of; and when he tells 
 the woman that she will not surely die, he meant it, for that 
 is the assurance he gave to all his patients. 
 
 This part of the allegory represents the sun in the sign of 
 the scales. The beam of the scales stands on the line of the 
 elliptic and one of the receptacles on which things were laid 
 to be weighed is in the dominion of good above the line, the 
 other receptacle is below the line in the dominion of evil. 
 In the Egyptian scheme of salvation, at death, the good acts 
 of the dead man were placed on one side of the scales and his 
 bad acts on the other; if his good acts outweighed his bad 
 ones he was saved, but if his bad ones weighed the most he 
 was lost. But the Lord said that " He would put enmity 
 between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. 
 It shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel." This 
 sentence refers to Hercules and Draco in their constellations.* 
 Draco was the seed of the serpent that was cursed, and Her- 
 cules was the seed of the woman who was the mother of all the 
 
 *On any pictorial map of the heavens the foot of Hercules is on the 
 head of the serpent, showing that Hercules fulfils that prediction. 
 
Man and the Earth 87 
 
 demi-gods. She stands there in the heaven and Adam is just 
 above her, where he has ruled over her for thousands of years. 
 Adam (the sun) is now driven out of Eden into the season of 
 thorns and thistles, and as it is getting cold the Lord makes 
 clothes for them of skins of some of the animals. And in order 
 that he can't get near the tree of life to eat of its fruit and live 
 forever, " he drove out the man ; and he placed at the east of 
 the garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword which turned 
 every way to keep the way of the tree of life." 
 
 Any one during a summer evening when the stars are out, 
 in looking toward the pole star will see the cherubim (Perseus) 
 and his flaming sword turning every way to prevent any one 
 from getting near the tree of life (the pole star). The reason 
 the woman was tempted before the man is because the moon 
 reaches that part of its orbit before the sun. The sun now going 
 down out of the northern heaven the allegory says " The Lord 
 drove out the man," and as the moon is now up in the northern 
 heaven, she can't be driven out, so there is nothing said about 
 the woman. In all solar allegories the heroes are personifica- 
 tions of the sun and the heroines are personifications of the 
 moon. Every word of the three chapters of Genesis that we 
 have gone through, that appears to be historical, is simply a 
 part of an allegory or myth. Abram, Isaac, and Jacob, each 
 in turn is a personification of the sun, and their wives of the 
 moon. These allegories run through the whole of that part 
 of the Bible that the Jews obtained while captives in Assyria.* 
 In the account of the deluge, the old tradition of the great 
 deluge was mixed with the deucalion flood, as a large part of 
 Asia Minor was affected by the latter deluge. Many of these 
 facts have come to light recently through the intelligent labor 
 of archeologists, and as the Church of the sixteenth century 
 still under the dominance of Paul's pupil Augustine, used its 
 power to prevent the acceptance of the Copernican system, the 
 oligarchy of Italian cardinals, for whose benefit and that of 
 their families principally the Papacy exists, compelled the Pope, 
 who is a mere figurehead in flie hands of these men, to ap- 
 point a commission whose duty it was to declare that Moses 
 wrote the most important part of them. This was done for 
 
 *No Protestant writer of any reputation believes that Moses wrote 
 any part of the Old Testament. 
 
88 .. Modernism 
 
 the purpose of trying to turn the wheels of progressive knowl- 
 edge backward. 
 
 In a conversation with a Brahmin or priest of Calcutta, in 
 relation to the Avatar* theory or doctrine, he said as a religious 
 philosophy it had a firm basis. When the time came for the 
 appearance of a new Avatar or incarnation of the deity, that 
 it not only gave excuse for, but made it obligatory to make 
 religious and political changes or reformations in conformity 
 with the discovery of new truth and moral obligations that are 
 of great advantage to humanity. Conservatism and the posses- 
 sion of acknowledged authority must give way to the precepts 
 of the new Avatar, therefore as a mere philosophical idea the 
 doctrine is invaluable to humanity. 
 
 Before the time of Julius Caesar there had been a few public 
 characters in Rome deified while living, so that when the im- 
 mortal Julius had displayed such wonderful capacity and success 
 in all his undertakings as a soldier, orator, and statesman, 
 unequalled in the history, of mankind, it is not surprising that 
 he should be deified and receive the homage due to a god 
 while living. According to his religious biography, his birth 
 was miraculous, as he was taken from the side of his mother. 
 A star appeared over his cradle to announce his advent to the 
 world. He laughed at the moment of his birth. At the age 
 of seventeen he became a priest of Jupiter; at twenty-seven a 
 cardinal or member of the sacred college, at thirty-eight, Pon- 
 tifex Maximus, and at fifty-four, he was deified in Egypt in the 
 temple of Jupiter Ammon; and at fifty-six he was deified by 
 the Roman senate. When he died the sun was darkened and 
 there was an earthquake. A comet appeared which it was 
 believed carried his soul to heaven. 
 
 The first definite date for the appearance of an incarnation 
 of the deity, with the full account of his life and death, was 
 the year one thousand three hundred and thirty-two, B. C. This 
 was les Chrishna or Chrishna. This was the ninth Avatar ac- 
 
 *It would be useless to mention the names of the several Avatars that 
 the Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians, Indians, Chinese, Peruvians, Mexi- 
 cans, and other nations of the old and new world claim have appeared 
 and lived and died in those countries. But it might be stated that 
 at the time of the beginning of our era, most of these nations by 
 systems of their own for computing cycles for the appearance of a new 
 Avatar or Saviour, had predicted that at this time a new Saviour 
 should appear. 
 
Man and the Earth 89 
 
 cording to the Indian chronology; at the end of the divine year, 
 or six hundred and fifty-eight years before our era, Buddha was 
 born. The year six hundred and fifty is the Augustine date for 
 the birth of Buddha. At the end of the next divine year, that 
 is, the beginning of our era, Salivahana is named by northern 
 India as the tenth Avatar or incarnation of the deity. This 
 was the time set by the Indian fakirs for the end of the world. 
 As the invasion of Alexander the Great, had caused consid- 
 erable commotion throughout India, the seers, sibyls and 
 prophets of Asia Minor, Greece, Egypt and Rome had predicted 
 that the manifestor of this period would usher in the millennary 
 age. The Romans had placed all their reliance on the predic- 
 tion of the Cumean Sibyl. Virgil the Roman poet, believed it 
 pointed to his royal patron. Although when Virgil wrote the 
 ^neid, the more intelligent part of the Roman people did not 
 have much faith in the ancient gods, yet he made as extrava- 
 gant a use of those gods in that poem, as Homer did in his 
 great poem, the Iliad; this of itself, is pretty good evidence 
 that the vast majority of the people believed in those gods. The 
 Cumean Sibyl had uttered her prediction that the time was at 
 hand, and Virgil taking a view of the condition of the world, 
 knowing the eminent qualities of his great patron and his power 
 of doing good, seemed to think that Augustus was the person 
 whose beneficent reign would be the glory of mankind. Augus- 
 tus was one of the greatest politicians that ever lived. The 
 common people looked upon Virgil as a prophet, that his poems 
 were inspired, and the Roman emperor left no stone unturned 
 that would help to spread the belief that he was a god and the 
 man to whom the Sibylline prediction pointed as the Saviour and 
 Avatar of the great period predicted by the seers of the west 
 and Egypt. 
 
 The senate recognized him as the long expected Messiah, 
 a fact that Augustus mentions in his will, wkich is carved on 
 the Temple of Ancyra, still standing with the inscription upon 
 it. At first he only claimed to be the son of God; afterwards 
 he accepted the title and prayers due to the Creator, and as 
 such was addressed in the temples dedicated to his worship. 
 He erected a temple near the Tarpeian rock in Rome which 
 was inscribed "To Augustus the First Born of God." In the 
 inscriptions of the recently exhumed public edifices of Ephesus, 
 
90 Modernism 
 
 Augustus is addressed the Son of God. As supreme pontiff, 
 he lawfully acquired and exercised full authority over every 
 thing and every person holding any religious position. Great 
 images and shrines of the same god were erected in the high- 
 ways and resorted to for sanctuary. There were a thousand 
 of such shrines in Rome alone. Even the emperors who suc- 
 ceeded him, among them Tiberius, Nero, and Hadrian, built 
 altars and offered sacrifices to Augustus. The common people 
 wore little images of him suspended from their neck. The 
 number of miracles related of him is endless. The image of 
 Augustus upon the coins of his own mintage or that of his 
 vassals, is surrounded with a halo of light which indicates divin- 
 ity; and on the reverse of the coins are displayed the various 
 emblems of religion, such as the mitre, cross, crook, fishes, 
 labarum, and the Buddhic and Bacchic or Dionysian monogram 
 of " P." In India, the Avatar Salivahana and Augustus were 
 regarded as the same. In a work on art published recently, 
 nearly one hundred sacred titles given to Augustus are cited, 
 from marble and bronze monuments still extant. 
 
 Outside of the gods that had been recognized by Greece 
 and Rome, the worship of Augustus was the only one tolerated 
 for a time. He was worshipped under the titles of Jupiter, 
 Apollo, Janus, Quirinus, Dionysius, and nearly one hundred 
 others. A regular cult and an order of priests was established 
 to give special attention to his worship. An age or era was 
 established beginning with the apotheosis of Augustus, and the 
 Roman empire and the most civilized regions of the world 
 have lived under the title of Anno Domini, or the year of 
 our Lord (and Saviour Augustus), as it has been written. The 
 worship of Augustus continued until Commodus destroyed the 
 respect which the Romans had for the divine character of their 
 emperors. Before his death there was a private feast which 
 became known as the supper of the twelve gods. Twelve inti- 
 mate friends of Augustus were attired as gods and goddesses, 
 himself personating Apollo. A stately funeral bore his re- 
 mains to the mausoleum, his dirge was chanted by the children 
 of nobles; the senate decreed him divine honors, and the Senator 
 Numericus Atticus swore that he saw his effigy ascend to 
 heaven. A splendid representation of the ascension carved upon 
 
Man and the Earth 91 
 
 a huge cameo, was presented by the Emperor Baldwin the 
 Second, to Louis the Ninth of France. 
 
 " The Augustine era since masked under other names, served 
 for dates of the Roman world, until some time after the reign 
 of Justinian Second, when without unnecessary disturbance of 
 recorded dates, the years which were formerly reckoned from 
 A. U. 738, were reckoned from A. U. 753. When the chron- 
 ology of the Augustine period is closely examined it will be 
 found to have been altered by the Latin sacred college to the 
 extend of fifteen years."* 
 
 When the Jews were in the Babylonian captivity their chief 
 priests got an undefined idea of the Avatar system, and it was 
 ambiguously inserted in some of their books, but the common 
 people were not privileged to interpret their sacred writings; 
 This was the privilege of the Jewish council and the high priest 
 alone. About the time that the apotheosis of Augustus took 
 place, a number of Jews who were ignorant of the esoteric 
 interpretation of their scriptures, were irritated beyond descrip- 
 tion to find that their country had been shorn of its independence 
 and reduced to a small section of a province of the Roman 
 empire. Underestimating the power of Rome and over- 
 estimating the Lord's interest in the prosperity of the 
 Jewish people, a large faction began to agitate the ques- 
 tion of paying tribute money to Rome. This faction declared 
 that it was unlawful for them to pay tribute. The leader of 
 this faction, Judas, a Galilean, argued that it was unlawful and 
 cowardly to pay taxes to the Romans, or to submit to mortal 
 men as their lords. This assumption of a man or faction of 
 the right to interpret the law, unsanctioned by the high priest 
 and his council, was unprecedented in the history of Judaism. 
 It was the belief of Judas and his followers, that all that was 
 necessary to re-establish their independence, was for the people 
 to rise up unanimously and God would help them to destroy 
 the dominion of Rome over them, and that a prediction which 
 they had discovered in their sacred writings, they assumed, 
 gave ample guarantee that they would be not only successful 
 but that a leader would be developed in the war who would 
 be the governor of all the earth. 
 
 *Del Mar. 
 
92 Modernism 
 
 The predictions on which they based their belief that a man 
 who was of the tribe of Judah should be the governor of all 
 the nations, are as follows: " There shall come a star out of 
 Jacob, and a sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite 
 the corners of Moab and destroy all the children of Sheth." 
 The time when it was expected that the star should come, was 
 taken from the blessing of Judah by Jacob, where it says : " The 
 sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a law-giver from be- 
 neath his feet until Shiloh come and unto him shall be the 
 gathering of the people." Both of these so-called prophecies 
 are astrological, for they refer to constellations of the Zodiac. 
 Shiloh and a gathering of the people refer to the gathering of 
 the people at the yearly festival of the tabernacles. In this 
 text Shiloh seems by a literal reading to refer to a man, but 
 no literal meaning can be applied to any of these allegories. 
 Other texts of the scripture show that Shiloh is referred to as 
 a place where an altar is set up and the people gather around 
 it. This festival always followed in proper time after the sun 
 had passed from the constellation of the lion, which in the 
 Jewish astrology was the constellation of Judah. One of these 
 predictions was made by Balaam, whose ass held a conversation 
 with him. In Genesis there are two accounts which say that 
 animals talked with people, the serpent with Eve, and the ass 
 with Balaam. In both instances the sun was passing through 
 the stars which had the names of Ass and Serpent. In celestial 
 allegories the sun makes all the animals talk or do some thing 
 while it is passing in front of them. Although Judas and his 
 followers had begun to interpret the scriptures, they did not 
 receive any encouragement from the high priest or any of his 
 council. The example set by Judas of ignoring the authority 
 of the high priest, as the interpreter of the law and the prophets, 
 spread rapidly and was the cause of all the misfortune that befell 
 the Jewish people. 
 
 That the high priest, his council and all those called prophets, 
 understood the esoteric meaning of all the allegorical histories 
 contained in the Old Testament, it would be most illogical 
 to doubt, therefore when their attention was called to the parts 
 of the scripture that Judas and his followers were interpreting 
 to their own destruction and that of a large part of the Jewish 
 people, they did all they could to stem the tide of revolution 
 
Man and the Earth 93 
 
 until the life of Judaism was at stake. Although we have very 
 little knowledge of what transpired in Judea during the time 
 on which we are now entering outside of the fairly honest history 
 of Josephus, yet it should not be forgotten that he was a Jew 
 of the strictest order, with all the prejudice of a pharisee, and 
 also very superstitious for a man of his intelligence and general 
 ability. However, Josephus at about the time that is now called 
 the beginning of the Christian era, acknowledges the existence 
 of a Jewish sect of which he says that Judas a Galilean was the 
 founder. Goethe, one of the greatest intellects that the earth 
 has yet produced as a poet, philosopher and a scientist, says 
 in one of his aphorisms, " The Christian religion is an inten- 
 tional political revolution which after having failed became 
 moral." From the time that Judas set up the standard of 
 revolt, until the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem, and the 
 capture of John and Simon, the faction that these two men 
 represented never ceased to believe that they would finally be 
 victorious until the Roman army under Titus had entered the 
 city of Jerusalem. Josephus does not give these men the credit 
 they deserve as heroes and patriots. Having been forgiven for 
 his own youthful patriotic spirit which was caused by the open 
 spirit of rebellion that was pervading the masses throughout 
 Samaria, Galilee, and Judea, his failure ended his interest in 
 the cause of emancipation. 
 
 For a long time before the Roman army had taken possession 
 of what was left of Jerusalem, Simon and John were the gen- 
 erals of the Jews who defended the city and temple against 
 the Roman army. No inducement, persuasion or antagonism 
 of either friend or enemy could make either of them think it 
 judicious or right to give up the fight against the Romans, and 
 at last Josephus seems to have discovered the ground on which 
 their hope of ultimate success was based. The prediction of 
 Balaam, which was cited at the beginning of the seditious pro- 
 ceedings was the basis of that hope. Even when murder, star- 
 vation, disease and physical weakness had rendered the de- 
 fenders of the city useless as soldiers, those who kept the city 
 to the last day from surrendering, believed that the Lord would 
 send some one who would defeat the Romans and after that 
 establish a kingdom of the Jews that would rule the world. 
 Josephus has not given those men any credit at all. There were 
 
94 Modernism 
 
 barbarous and inhuman actions as might be expected under 
 such circumstances. Josephus says : " What did most elevate 
 them in undertaking this war, was an ambiguous oracle that 
 was found in their sacred writings, how about this time one 
 from their own country should be the governor of the whole 
 habitable earth; so the Jews took this prediction to belong to 
 themselves in particular, and many wise men were thereby 
 deceived in their determination; now this oracle certainly de- 
 noted the government of Vespasian, who was appointed em- 
 peror in Judea." When this suggestion of Josephus was known 
 at a later time, than the election of Vespasian emperor while 
 he was in Judea, it caused much excitement, but when Vespasian 
 had returned to Rome he attended the festival which had been 
 established as acknowledgment of Augustus as the Messiah. 
 Previously Titus with several thousand prisoners started for 
 the city of Rome; here Vespasian joined him, and Simon, the 
 general-in-chief of the Jewish warriors was beheaded, and John, 
 the second in command was banished for life to the Isle of 
 Patmos. A large number of the prisoners were sold into slav- 
 ery. Some of the Jews who had escaped from Judea, fled to 
 Egypt and began to incite the Egyptian Jews to revolt against 
 the Romans. Fearing that they might be classed with the 
 rebels, as these had already killed some of the Alexandrian 
 Jews with whom they were disputing, the president of the 
 Jewish organization, called an assembly of the Alexandrian 
 Jews and depicted to them the danger they were in by allowing 
 the rebels to raise tumults in their community. After the 
 assembly adjourned, the Alexandrian Jews captured the rebels 
 and turned them over to the Roman officers. As a number 
 of the rebels had gone to other parts of Egypt, the Roman 
 governor captured them all and put them to the torture, men, 
 women and children. They were asked to acknowledge the 
 emperor as their lord, their ruler, but not a man, woman or 
 child would make such an acknowledgment, and of course 
 they were all executed. This made a deep impression on very 
 many of the Alexandrian Jews, and caused quite a commotion 
 among them. The Roman governor fearing an outbreak of 
 the whole community, communicated his fears to the emperor, 
 who ordered the temple of Onias, which was in many respects 
 patterned after the temple at Jerusalem, closed. This temple 
 
Man and the Earth 95 
 
 had been built about three hundred years before that time by 
 a wealthy Jew named Onias. Seeing that their allegiance to 
 the government of Rome did not avail them much, as their 
 temple was closed, many of the Alexandrian Jews went to Rome. 
 In this great populous city and the city of Antioch, foreigners 
 did not attract much attention if they did not make themselves 
 conspicuous. After things had quieted down, from the excite- 
 ment caused by the triumphant entry of the Roman army and 
 its Jewish prisoners of war, in the inauguration of the new em- 
 peror and the festivities that followed, the Jewish war was soon 
 forgotten by the pleasure-loving Romans; but the Jewish slaves 
 who found themselves in a foreign land, felt the humiliation of 
 their position with sorrowful hearts. 
 
 There were many Jews in Rome and the other principal 
 cities of the empire. These had the greatest sympathy for their 
 heroic brethren. In time many of the slaves through good con- 
 duct were liberated and taken into the service of their masters 
 at the usual rate of wages for the kind of service they per- 
 formed. Gradually, nearly all of them who had been brought 
 to Rome found their way to the synagogues which were in the 
 poorest part of the city. Their religious meetings were mourn- 
 ful affairs as they never ceased to rehearse the incidents con- 
 nected with their war for independence. Every one who played 
 a prominent part in that war was spoken of in terms of praise 
 mingled with sorrow; the valor and generalship of Simon, who 
 was brought to Rome in chains, only to be executed at trie 
 end of his journey; and John, the second in command, who was 
 doomed to end his life as a prisoner on the Isle of Patmos, and 
 others who had fought and bled and suffered starvation at the 
 siege of Jerusalem. The dead were spoken of with veneration. 
 And although they were disappointed on account of the Mes- 
 siah failing to come to their assistance, their faith was not quite 
 dead, as he might come yet, as the condition of the Jews was 
 worse now than it had ever been before. 
 
96 Modernism 
 
 PREFACE OF SILAS THE MONK WHO HAD BEEN 
 AT THE SIEGE OF JERUSALEM TO THE STORY 
 OF JOHN THE PRESBYTER ABOUT JESUS AND 
 THE CHRISTIAN BROTHERHOOD. 
 
 When the numbering of the people of Judea had been fin- 
 ished under Cyrenius, a per capita tax was laid on the country 
 and the Jewish authorities had to collect or make up enough 
 to pay the assessment. Judas of Galilee and some others pub- 
 licly declared they would not pay the tribute, on the ground 
 that it was unlawful to pay tribute to any foreigner or to call 
 any man lord. In time, they organized a sect which was called 
 the Galileanites, but Joazer, the high priest induced the great 
 majority to pay the tax. Whatever may have been the motives 
 of the founders of the sect, in a short time the leaders of it only 
 used its watchword for the purpose of provoking a revolt against 
 the Romans. The high priests and the ruling class still favored 
 the payment of the tax and the Galileanites did not make much 
 headway. Then they began to use all sorts of reproachful lan- 
 guage about the rulers, calling them cowards and other vile 
 names; but the rulers still rode rough shod over the multitude. 
 The pharisees, the scribes and all the higher class thought only 
 of gaining power and of making money. But during the last 
 year of Pilate's procuratorship, a man who was called a zealot, 
 named Jesus, who was versed in the law of the Jews, who had 
 obtained secret knowledge of the shortcomings of many of the 
 high priests and the pharisees, did much to destroy the influ- 
 ence of the rulers by going out on the public places on Sabbath 
 afternoons and making speeches criticising many of them and 
 denouncing their illegal acts, their hypocrisy, their several ways 
 for fleecing the public and oppressing the poor. 
 
 His speeches aroused indignation against them, among 
 those who were honest and the multitude of the poorer sort. 
 The high priest and the pharisees were furious and tried to 
 get Pilate to stop his talking, so Pilate set spies upon the man 
 to find if he used any words which would show that he wanted 
 the people to revolt or any reproachful language about his gov- 
 
Preface of Silas the Monk 97 
 
 ernment, but the spies reported that he did not. But the high 
 priest insisted that he was using the public places on the 
 Sabbath day when people were idle and such desecration of the 
 Sabbath should be prevented, so Pilate ordered one of his 
 captains to disperse the meetings. This was done by the soldiers 
 beating the people on the back with the back of their swords 
 on the next Sabbath afternoon. Jesus then gave out that as 
 the rulers were opposed to them quietly meeting in the public 
 places in Judea, that on the next Sabbath afternoon he would 
 go into Samaria and up on the mountain, and as there would 
 likely be a very large number of Jews there, some of them 
 might have a chance to find the sacred vessels that were sup- 
 posed to have been put in some of the caves in the mountain. 
 The high priest Caiaphas when he heard this announcement, 
 warned Pilate that he had let this man go too long without 
 taking him off, for he was now sure that when he would get 
 a great number of the people together that he would incite them 
 to revolt, then they would come down and rush on his soldiers 
 and destroy them. 
 
 This speech of Caiaphas frightened Pilate, and to prevent 
 Jesus from making the speech, Pilate sent all his horse and 
 foot men up on the mountain with orders to attack and kill 
 every one they could catch. So they killed a great many and 
 Jesus was among the number killed. As the affair had taken 
 place in Samaria and a great many Samaritans were killed, 
 through the protest of the Samaritans and the Jews whose 
 friends were killed, Pilate was sent in disgrace to Rome to be 
 tried for murder and Caiaphas was expelled from the office of 
 high priest. Because this man had been called a zealot and 
 had played the part of a reformer, the Galileanites and others 
 now formed a party called the Zealots and never ceased criti- 
 cising and denouncing the pharisees and the rulers generally. 
 The spirit of revolution continued to grow daily through Judea 
 and Samaria and the Jewish authorities kept growing weaker 
 as a moral force. 
 
 Finally some public character among the sect of the Essenes 
 gave out that the time had come for the fulfilment of the pre- 
 diction in the scriptures for the appearance of the liberator or 
 promised one. This went through the country like wild fire, 
 
98 Modernism 
 
 and every man who was at all fired with patriotic zeal com- 
 menced to look about for a following. Every conceited, am- 
 bitious fighter in Judea, had hopes that he might be the prom- 
 ised one. Herod had fortified all the strong places in the coun- 
 try and had laid up arms, corn, oil and wine in many of them. 
 Jerusalem had been made almost impregnable, and the wild 
 enthusiasts had made themselves believe that no power in the 
 world could ever take that city if its walls were manned by 
 resolute men. Others believed that God would protect the 
 temple from the desecration of a foreign foe to the end of time. 
 There were prophecies among the Jews that the temple would 
 proudly stand to the day of judgment. 
 
 All these things combined inflated the minds of the ambitious 
 spirits of revolt. Some of the sons of the rulers were smitten 
 with the spirit of revolt. Eleazar the son of one of the high 
 priests who was governor of the temple, thinking he might 
 have a chance to be selected to take supreme command, al- 
 though not a zealot, but in order to gain a following of that 
 party and other revolutionists, refused to allow the sacrifice 
 or offering of the emperor. This immediately brought to his 
 support a large following of young men, some of them sons 
 of the ruling class. Manahem, one of the sons of Judas of 
 Galilee, two of whose brothers, Simon and James, had been 
 crucified before the revolt commenced, being an adroit talker, 
 succeeded in gaining quite a good following shortly after the 
 performance of Eleazar. His father and two brothers having 
 suffered for the cause excited sympathy for him also. His 
 cousin Eleazar, son of Jarias gave him great assistance. Taking 
 his followers with him he went to the fortress of Masada and 
 slew the guard, entered the armory where he and his friends 
 armed themselves. He put on the king's royal robes and put 
 a diadem on his head, then returned to Jerusalem. When he 
 and his friends marched to the temple, Eleazar the governor, 
 called his friends about him and then he tongue-lashed Manahem 
 as an upstart, and told him if the Jews were going to have a 
 king that he would be the last one who would be selected. 
 So Eleazar and every one in sight threw stones at Manahem 
 and his followers and dispersed them. Manahem ran away and 
 hid himself, but Eleazar determined to give him no chance of 
 
Preface of Silas the Monk 99 
 
 continuing his royal pretentions, so they hunted him up and 
 killed him. Eleazar thought that Manahem was too low in the 
 social scale to put on such airs. 
 
 This was only the first illustration of the madness of the 
 revolters. But Eleazar would soon meet a man that knew how 
 to conform his conduct to his surroundings and who would 
 make the governor of the temple acknowlege his inferiority. 
 In time, John of Gischala with quite a large number of his 
 friends got into Jerusalem. John was the most subtile poli- 
 tician in Judea as well as a good fighter. If he had not entered 
 Jerusalem, that city would probably have been delivered to the 
 Romans without a siege. Through his eloquence and diplo- 
 macy, he soon gained a very large following in the city, and 
 finally got possession of the Temple and the King's palace. 
 The great fight for supremacy soon commenced in earnest. 
 Every prominent man in the revolt believed he was qualified 
 to act as supreme commander and to defeat the Romans. The 
 settled conviction among them was, that the man who would 
 be able to cut off all his competitors would obtain thereby 
 supreme command, conquer the Romans and at least become 
 absolute king of the Jews. As remarked before, all the leaders 
 believed it would be impossible for the Romans to take 
 Jerusalem as long as the walls were protected. And to prevent 
 the failure of guarding trie walls, the gates were strictly guarded 
 to prevent those Jews who were opposed to them from getting 
 out of the city. They determined to kill off all their opponents 
 who had any influence over the people, so that the multitude 
 being without leaders of any kind, would eventually become 
 defenders of the city. 
 
 As each one hoped to be the final supreme commander, this 
 scheme of preventing all the able-bodied men from leaving the 
 city was carried out. When the great storehouse of corn was 
 burnt up, Simon was going to withdraw and leave the city to 
 the mercy of John, but those who were animated with patriotic 
 affections prevailed on him to remain. All except John tendered 
 him the supreme command. John refused. Then Eleazar, one 
 of his captains, got up in the temple above John and pelted 
 him with stones and arrows while Simon's men fought him in 
 front; finally John surrendered on condition that Simon would 
 
ioo . Modernism 
 
 take the oath of the Zealots, which he did. Then Simon was 
 declared Prince of Israel and supreme commander.* 
 
 Titus now discovered that the Jews were working" more 
 systematically and became more prudent in his operations. 
 But the city was soon starved into subjection as men cannot 
 stand much work on empty stomachs. The city was finally 
 stormed and many of the men slaughtered. John and Simon 
 were made prisoners of war, Simon was executed and John 
 was transported for life to the Isle of Patmos. After Titus had 
 taken Jerusalem he regarded the war as closed, but he left 
 a small part of his army in Judea to finish up the work. It 
 was not easy to guard so large a number of prisoners as he 
 was taking to Rome, and many of them escaped and lost no 
 time in returning to Judea. When they informed those they 
 met that Titus had given exhibitions in the theatres on his way, 
 in which many of the Jews were slaughtered by wild beasts and 
 gladiators, and that the Roman soldiers were misusing and 
 corrupting the wives and daughters of the prisoners, Eleazar, 
 cousin of Manahem, who escaped to Masada when Manahem 
 was killed, hearing the stories of the escaped prisoners, ad- 
 mitted about a thousand men, women and children into the 
 fortress. The fortress was attacked by the Roman general and 
 when Eleazar found that they could not keep the Romans out 
 he made a strong and convincing speech to the people on the 
 immortality of the soul and the misery that would overtake 
 them if they permitted the Romans to capture them alive. His 
 speech made such a profound impression that they all sub- 
 mitted to be killed with their own hands sooner than deliver 
 themselves to the Roman general. Nine hundred and sixty 
 died in this awful slaughter. Two women and five children had 
 crept into one of the caves and thus preserved their lives. 
 
 The account of this calamity in Judea, and what befell those 
 who had fled to Egypt, in a short time was brought to the 
 
 *The infallible evidence that Simon was declared Prince of Israel is 
 manifested in the coins that were struck in Jerusalem during the siege of 
 that city by Titus. There have been found silver and bronze pieces with 
 the name of Simon Prince of Israel. Also shekels with the name of 
 Simon. The obverse type of a gate of the temple and on the reverse a 
 bundle of branches and a citron, symbols of the feast of the tabernacles, 
 which was observed during the seige, the last time that the Jews observed 
 that feast in the city of Jerusalem. The coins discredit to some extent 
 the bad character that Josephus has given Simon and John. 
 
Preface of Silas the Monk 1,0 T. 
 
 knowledge of those who had been brought, -tfr'Rom^ by 'Titos'. 
 When they thought of all the tribulations that had been the 
 result of the revolt, the manner in which they had been treated 
 by the high priests and pharisees, who did everything they could 
 to betray them, their hatred of the ruling classes was a thousand 
 times greater than that which they bore to the Romans. With 
 this cause of oppression on their minds, and being prescribed 
 and persecuted where they lived, their meetings in the Roman 
 synagogues were woeful affairs. Simon had a little son named 
 Simon who traveled with the prisoners to Rome so that he 
 could see his father. Simon having been informed by a Roman 
 captain that he was going to be executed when he reached 
 Rome, placed the boy in the hands of a friend named 
 Bartholomew and asked him to take care of him. Bartholomew 
 was bought by an Augustine priest named Cepheus Linus, 
 who permitted the boy to stay in his house. Seeing that the 
 boy was very intelligent he gave him a good education. In a 
 short time he became an excellent Greek scholar and Bartholo- 
 mew taught him to read, write and speak the Hebrew lan- 
 guage fluently. The boy had from his infancy spoken the com- 
 mon language of the Jews. 
 
 In time the Zealots who were among the prisoners of war 
 in Rome established three synagogues. The first one was 
 established by the more prominent men of the sect. Bartholo- 
 mew was one of the organizers of this synagogue, and he always 
 took young Simon with him to prayers. The Augustine priest 
 whom Bartholomew served, became much interested in the Jews 
 through conversation with Bartholomew. He told the priest 
 that their sacred books predicted that some great man would 
 liberate the Jews, and that he would make their kingdom greater 
 than it ever was before, but the result of the war proved that 
 the man who expounded the prediction had mistaken the times. 
 Cepheus had made his house a meeting place where he and six 
 other priests of the Augustan Order frequently met to talk of their 
 own affairs. The reason why they were so friendly with each 
 other was that they had been students of the philosopher Epic- 
 tetus. The temples that had been erected for the special wor- 
 ship of Augustus, had for some time been losing their patron- 
 age, as that came from the emperors and their nearest friends. 
 It was this condition of things which caused these seven priests, 
 
yc? Modernism 
 
 who \vere Greeks either by birth or parentage, to think of 
 making some provision for the future, as it was evident to 
 them that the Messiahship of Augustus was a failure, and this 
 was brought about mostly by the emperors who followed him, 
 seeking deification also. At last, when the emperor Nerva had 
 declared that he would not accept such honors or permit statues 
 to be erected to him, they said this act of Nerva shows that 
 no emperor should have been deified, and when the people 
 realize this truth, there will not be an Augustan altar in Rome. 
 Augustus brought peace on earth and good will among nations 
 as our hymns declare, during one generation. He established 
 an era which is likely to be observed as long as the empire 
 lasts, and many other valuable reforms, but the time will very 
 soon come when we will either have to get our temples dedicated 
 to some of the other gods, or try to establish a new system 
 of worship; this was their unanimous conclusion. They finally 
 resolved to imitate the Jews in heroism, to adopt the philosophy 
 of Epictetus as far as possible, and to select a pattern for the 
 new religion. 
 
 At that time there was no one who seemed to have any hopes 
 for relief from their misfortunes by the help of a Messiah, except 
 the despised, broken-hearted and prescribed Jews who had been 
 sold as slaves in the Roman markets and who were now meet- 
 ing in a sorrowful condition in their synagogues, and the 
 prisoners of war of other nations who were also sold as slaves. 
 Four of the Augustine priests referred to, had Jewish man 
 servants. These servants had taught the priests to sympathize 
 with the Jews and to visit their synagogues occasionally. They 
 paid physicians to attend to those who were sick. 
 
 An educated young Jew who had spent two years in Alex- 
 andria, came to Rome in the latter part of the reign of Domitian 
 whose name was John. Many years afterwards he was called 
 John the Apostate by the pharisees and John the Presbyter by 
 the Christians. The Apocalypse was written by him, the second 
 part of which was suggested by the Jewish war or revolt under 
 the high priest Akiba and Simon bar Cochebas. The author 
 of the tale was a schoolmate and youthful companion of John 
 
Man and the Earth 103 
 
 named James, who repeated it in a religious discussion with 
 Silas the Monk, a teacher of boys. Shortly after John arrived 
 in Rome he made the acquaintance of Josephus, who induced 
 him to act as agent for the sale of his histories. While acting 
 in this capacity he got on friendly terms with the founders of 
 the Brotherhood, which happened in this way. While John 
 was taking his daily walk to men's houses at which Josephus 
 advised him to call, he met a man who was standing in 
 front of a house near a temple who appeared to John to 
 be a Jew and he saluted him in the language of his own coun- 
 try. Finding that he was not mistaken they entered into quite 
 a long conversation, during which John informed his country- 
 man of the business he was engaged in. The other man 
 remarked to John that he had heard his master speak of 
 Josephus and that he might wish to be the owner of one of 
 the books, so he brought John into the house and informed 
 his master, that a young man whom he met at the door had 
 books of Josephus which he was engaging customers for. The 
 master of the house was Cepheus Linus, an Augustine priest. 
 John was called into a room where there were several men 
 sitting around a table.. After the men had examined the books 
 and talked to John about Josephus, Cepheus and one of his 
 friends agreed to take two copies of the Antiquities and the 
 Wars. According to agreement the books were delivered the 
 next day at the price which John was in the habit of getting 
 for them. When John called on that day there were seven men 
 present who were priests of the Augustan cult. The young 
 man who had introduced John to the priests was Simon's son. 
 He had taught his adopted father the common language of the 
 Jews and John was soon engaged to teach the other six priests 
 the same language and this took up so much of his time that 
 he gave up Josephus, as there was better pay in teaching the 
 priests. 
 
 When John 'had called at the house of Cepheus Linus the 
 seven priests referred to had made a full examination of the 
 histories of all the gods and religious cults that had been 
 known in Rome. They also had copies of the Alexandrian 
 version of the Jewish sacred books. In their examination of 
 the other religions, they discovered that what did most con- 
 vince people of the truth of these religions were the accounts 
 
i o 4 Modernism 
 
 of their writers that the gods that they worshipped performed 
 prodigies against the order of nature, and it was the belief of 
 the people that these gods did these wonderful things that made 
 them believe in them. As the success of their undertaking was 
 not to be overlooked they decided that the hero of the new 
 religion should imitate the greatest actions of all the gods that 
 had been worshipped in relation to miracles, for they had 
 determined to establish a new religion. These things had all 
 been settled and such a history as Josephus had written was 
 all they were waiting for, when John called at a time when they 
 most needed to have an opportunity to examine the history 
 of the Jewish revolt and other particulars. Through their con- 
 versation with John and all other Jews they assumed that the 
 Jewish sect of the Zealots could be made the foundation of the 
 new religion, although it should be liberal enough to embrace 
 the poor and neglected of all sects. To secure the help and 
 cooperation of the Zealots and such Jews as gloried in the 
 revolt, it was necessary to make it appear to them that the 
 new sect was established to perpetuate the memory of the heroes 
 and justify the acts of those who revolted against the high 
 priests and pharisees as well as the Romans. John, who was 
 second in command at Jerusalem, was liberated from the Isle 
 of Patmos with other prisoners when Nerva assumed the gov- 
 ernment. He was immediately taken to Rome and provided 
 for by the Augustine priests. When he was informed that the 
 movement was intended to perpetuate their memory and justify 
 their acts and condemn the high priests and pharisees, he earn- 
 estly lent his support to it. Although a very old man, he was 
 still a man of great intellectual power, and his influence was of 
 great importance among the Jewish revolters and their children. 
 The priest who was appointed to confer with John said to him 
 as it was necessary for them all to stand together and help each 
 other at all times, and as other people who were not Jews had 
 joined them they had changed the name from Zealots to the 
 Brotherhood, meaning that although of different nations we are 
 all brothers. The Zealots had taken the name from Jesus who 
 was first called a Zealot. In their short history of the Brother- 
 hood they had made him the master. He said to him that all 
 religions that have ever become popular were properly organ- 
 ized at first, and as we desire that ours shall live and become 
 
Man and the Earth 105 
 
 popular we have organized it in the proper way laying on its 
 foundation twelve pillars as the religion of your forefathers, 
 so we have twelve apostles, you are one of the most honor- 
 able. The others are Jews like yourself although some of them 
 are dead. Simon's little son who came to Rome was adopted 
 by one of my friends, who educated him, and gave him his own 
 name, Cepheus. He is the greatest instructor in the three 
 synagogues. He is so kind and considerate that they all seem 
 to love him. When any of them is sick he immediately sends 
 one of our physicians to attend him or her. After a long 
 struggle, which was mostly conducted on our behalf by Cepheus. 
 the three synagogues took up some of our forms. After being 
 convinced that the temple would never be rebuilt in Jerusalem, 
 as the Roman people would never permit it, they became 
 satisfied that no animals would ever again be killed as sacrifices 
 to God. So they adopted a simple institution that was used 
 in the temple where I and the other six priests worshipped. 
 At the end of trie service bread and wine were laid on the 
 altar or table, and after a blessing had been called upon it, 
 all the people in the temple who desired to do so, partook 
 of the bread and wine. This was called the Lord's supper. 
 In the three synagogues after the reader has finished and some 
 one has given instructions a hymn is sung, then one of the 
 elders blesses the bread and wine. Frequently a brother from 
 one of the other synogagues who has been present is asked to 
 say something, or some of the brethren of the synagogue may 
 know of some one who needs attention, if so there may be a 
 discussion about it. But the whole service is very beautiful. 
 All this seemed odd to John, but when he thought of the 
 length of time it was since he had attended a festival at the 
 temple of Jerusalem he laughed about it and said may be the 
 killing of animals to please God was foolish any way. But to 
 return to the work of the seven priests, after they had read 
 much of Josephus. They used the history of their own cult, 
 that is, they adopted the system employed by the founders of 
 the religion of Serapis at Alexandria. Serapis was a composite 
 character created from the histories of Mercury, Hermes, 
 Dionysius and Osiris. He represented all they considered valu- 
 able in the biographies of these four gods. According to the 
 four evangels of the cult, the father of Serapis was Jove the 
 
io 6 . Modernism 
 
 Supreme and Maia was his virgin mother, the star indicated 
 his birthplace. He was born on the winter solstice, his head 
 was rayed, his complexion florid and his hair auburn. He per- 
 formed numerous miracles, fasted forty days and was tempted 
 by the devil. He had twelve apostles, was persecuted for his 
 religion and condemned to die by crucifixion. He was crucified 
 at the vernal equinox, buried in a tomb and rose again from 
 the dead and ascended to heaven. His sepulchre was in the 
 Serapion at Alexandria. The cross on which he was crucified 
 contained the initials I. N. R. I. which in his case meant the 
 life to come. The writers who performed the task of preparing 
 the history on which the deification and apotheosis of Augustus 
 was consummated, had all the world to gather the materials 
 from, which when completed was nearly like that of Serapis, 
 therefore the Augustine priests did not have to make a new 
 search, it was only necessary to apply the best to the person 
 they substituted for Augustus, in their evangels or gospels. 
 As Serapis whom they had for their model was a composite 
 character made up of four former gods, it was necessary to 
 have an evangel representing each, so that in writing the 
 history of the person or character who would substitute Serapis 
 and Augustus, four evangels must be written or the four 
 evangels of Serapis remodeled to contain a history of the Jewish 
 Messiah, to whom they gave the Greek title of Christ. As the 
 composite character of the Christ must be drawn from the 
 history of four Jewish individuals who lived at or near the 
 time of the apotheosis of Augustus, the pharisees or ruling 
 class, must be his enemies. To make a true history according 
 to the idea adopted by the Indian philosophers for their Avatars, 
 the biography of Christina that was publicly known was applied 
 to him, which is as follows: 
 
 " He was the ninth Avatar or incarnation of the deity. His 
 mother was a virgin named Mary who was the wife of a vil- 
 lage carpenter named Josa. The messianic star indicated his 
 birthplace. He was born on the winter solstice among cow 
 herds or shepherds, in a cave. The nativity was ushered in 
 with music and flowers and was recognized by the Magi who 
 presented him with gifts of sandalwood and perfumes. At the 
 time of his nativity his putative father was called away to pay 
 the taxes. His head shone with divine effulgence. A slaughter 
 
Man and the Earth 107 
 
 of the innocents was ordered by King Kansa, with the object 
 of destroying the infant Messiah, who, however escaped. He 
 was transfigured and performed many miracles. The doctrines 
 which he preached are contained in the Vedes and Puranes. 
 These caused his betrayal and death. He partook of a last 
 supper with his ten apostles and was condemned to death by 
 Kansa. He was crucified on a nimb tree on the vernal equinox 
 in the thirty-third year of his age. To judge the dead he 
 descended to the nether world, where he sojourned for three 
 days and nights, after which he reappeared upon earth only 
 to ascend bodily to heaven. His principal sacraments were 
 baptism and the eucharist. His favorite disciple was Arjoona, 
 Jain or Jon. He fasted forty days. At his death the sun was 
 eclipsed, the earth shook with violent commotion and ghosts 
 stalked the highways. The sign of his last coming will be as 
 Kalpa, mounted on a white horse." 
 
 With such modifications as were necessary, this life of Chris- 
 tina was applied to Augustus, and it now was applied with 
 little modification to the Jewish Messiah. In looking over the 
 histories from which they hoped to get the information they 
 desired to build the composite character, they found that the 
 name of Jesus figured conspicuously in Jewish history at the 
 epoch they intended or must use. As it was nearly similar 
 to Jasius Quirinus and some of the titles that Augustus had 
 assumed of Dionysius or Bacchus, they decided to use this 
 name. Four things were absolutely necessary. It must be shown 
 that he was a preacher, wonder worker, a prophet and a king, 
 and also be crucified. The four characters who should fill these 
 requirements must have lived near enough to the time of 
 Augustus, so that the circumstances would not be so distant as 
 to have been forgotten. One of the objects sought by the selec- 
 tions was that the historical data relating to each of them would 
 in an ambiguous manner indicate that any one of them might 
 be the Jesus referred to in the gospels. Having selected the 
 name Jesus, they searched for the men whose record could 
 be applied to the Messiah. The first Jesus they found in the 
 Talmud. He became a Nazarene, went to Egypt in his youth, 
 studied magic and the art of healing. He was called a wonder 
 worker and was crucified on the eve of the Passover as a 
 wizard. He furnished the part of miracle worker to the Jesus 
 
io8 . Modernism 
 
 of the gospels. A man who was making public speeches dur- 
 ing the last year of Pilate, to whom we have referred before 
 who was killed by Pilate at the solicitation of Caiaphas the 
 high priest, whom Josephus does not name furnished the speech- 
 making Jesus. 
 
 Another Jesus who came to the temple a long time before the 
 war began and predicted the destruction of Jerusalem, the 
 temple and the people was selected to furnish the part of prophet 
 to the Jesus of the gospels. When Mark Anthony invaded 
 Judea he took the kingdom away from Antigonus. His name 
 was not Jesus, but he claimed to be king of the Jews. But 
 the name Jesus had a royal significance. When he was turned 
 over to Anthony he ordered him to be crucified with a crown 
 of thorns on his head and the inscription of King of the Jews 
 placed on the cross. He furnished the part applied to Jesus 
 as King of the Jews who was crucified with a crown of thorns 
 on his head and the other matters connected with it. Many 
 other things had been done and said by other persons of the 
 name of Jesus during that period which were said to have been 
 done by or to Jesus. To follow their pattern they selected 
 twelve apostles from among the Jews who had been members 
 of the sect of the Zealots.* 
 
 In creating a composite character which they desired should 
 be believed to be a real, living, acting historical individual, it 
 would be impossible to appeal to history for confirmation of 
 their ingenious story. But to offset this fact, witnesses were 
 named to convince the ignorant and uncritical. In the deifica- 
 tion of Augustus his divine attributes were advanced or de- 
 veloped in four distinct journeys or steps. First as high priest 
 or Pontifex Maximus or regulator of priestly functions. Then 
 heir to the founder of Rome their first demi-god. Then as 
 the long expected Messiah, as declared by the Roman Senate 
 and then as the son of God equal to the Creator, to whom 
 their prayers were directed. In the same manner the four 
 
 *As Josephus had not mentioned the name of the father of the man 
 he calls a liar, being the only one of the four persons selected, they 
 could furnish him with a Joseph father and a virgin mother a hundred 
 years after all who knew them were dead. And as Josephus did not 
 name the Baptist's father or mother they could make them part of the 
 holy family, but these things are not in the legend to which I must con- 
 fine myself. 
 
Man and the Earth 109 
 
 gospels were written or sketched, for they were not fully filled 
 out at first. In the first he called himself the son of man. 
 Then his genealogy was written from Adam. He had been 
 to his disciples only as their master as a Zealot. To the people 
 who became members of the communities his higher attributes 
 were advanced as fast as they were capable to believe. When 
 a large number had been for a good while listening to the 
 preachers and when all the old men were dead they began 
 to preach from the fourth gospel. At first none of the 
 gospels had been delivered to the preachers. They received 
 instructions verbally which they committed to memory and they 
 preached this amount of the gospel adding what seemed to 
 them connected with their lesson. An outline of the gospel 
 was given in a discourse to all candidates for teachers, and 
 discourses were written out which they were obliged to re- 
 hearse substantially before they could commence. Up to the 
 end of John's life, that is the Presbyter, nine-tenths of the 
 preachers were practically uneducated. A preacher, besides the 
 honor that was attached to the office, was sure of making a 
 living without work. When twelve young Jews who had be- 
 come good preachers through practice in the Roman syna- 
 gogues, had been provided with means to travel with Simon's 
 son, Cepheus at their head, and John, who became a Presbyter, 
 as his secretary and treasurer, they started for Judea by way of 
 Alexandria, where they made their first stop and first preached 
 outside of Italy. There were a few Zealots there who joined 
 them and they made several converts from among the Essenes. 
 Simon or Cepheus had been thoroughly instructed by the 
 Agusdne priests, so as to be prepared for the opposition 
 of the leaders of the several sects of Alexandria, and he made 
 a good impression. Finding that there was not much to be 
 gained by a long stay there they started for Palestine. They 
 had however formed one small community. They did not stop 
 until they got to Judea in the vicinity of Jerusalem. Here they 
 commenced to preach, sometimes in the synagogues at other 
 times in public places. When they had founded a community 
 here of Zealots and others, they then founded others that were 
 composed of Essenes entirely. Being advised by a friend 
 from near Babylon to go there, three of them went and after 
 a week's work founded a community there, when they imme- 
 
no 
 
 Modernism 
 
 diately returned to Judea. After doing all they could in Judea 
 they went into Samaria, where they were well received and did 
 better work than they had done elsewhere up to that time. 
 They remained three years in Palestine founding small com- 
 munities in every city. Saulus, who was kin to one of the 
 ruling families, who during the times of trouble, with other 
 young rascals of the same class had committed all kinds of 
 depredations on the poor and particularly on the more peace- 
 able and honest of the Zealots, had heard the preachers of 
 the Brotherhood in Alexandria and had followed them to Judea. 
 Some of the Gnostics of Alexandria, who had heard the 
 preachers of the Brotherhood at Rome, had taken what they 
 understood to be the doctrines of the Brotherhood up for 
 examination and were discoursing on the subject in one of 
 their meeting places. Saulus had heard the discourses of the 
 speakers and was thinking seriously about joining them when 
 Cepheus and his companions arrived in Alexandria. After 
 attending the preaching of the Brotherhood for over a week, 
 he spoke to one of them about joining them. The meetings 
 of the Brotherhood were crowded always and many people 
 could not get inside the room, therefore they held most of 
 their meetings in public resorts. Saulus said he thought he 
 understood their doctrine well enough to make a public teacner, 
 but he was informed that he would have to undergo a course 
 of instructions in order to receive a letter which would entitle 
 him to speak on behalf of the Brotherhood. Some time after 
 this, a teacher of the community that was in Damascus heard 
 about a man who was called Paul who did not belong to the 
 community teaching in that city. Making inquiry about him 
 it was discovered that he claimed that he was converted by 
 Jesus meeting him on the road and teaching him how to teach. 
 The brother who had made this discovery was about to de- 
 nounce Paul, but Cepheus advised him to let Paul alone as they 
 had no power to stop him, but no member of the Brotherhood 
 should have anything to do with him in any manner. Now 
 Cepheus knew that the Jesus of the gospels had no existence, 
 therefore Paul was a liar. Paul did not know anything about 
 the foundation of the Brotherhood, but he was smitten with a 
 frenzy to preach, and did not want to take directions from any 
 
Man and the Earth in 
 
 one, so he preached a gospel of his own which was mixed 
 with Gnosticism. 
 
 In the second year of the Emperor Marcus Nerva the first 
 teachers of the Brotherhood began to preach in the city of Rome, 
 from which circumstance, it was called the Apostolic City. 
 Cepheus had been chosen president of the Council of Seven, and 
 after his death his adopted son, the son of Simon took his 
 place. During the seven years absence from Rome of Cepheus 
 or Simon, the other six priests carried on the instruction of 
 all those preparing to take the field as preachers. During the 
 seven years that Cepheus was in the east they had established 
 small communities in Palestine and all the cities near the sea 
 and on the lines of travel from Rome returning through Mace- 
 donia to Rome. Cepheus had been continually writing to the 
 council for messengers to be sent to him with such money as 
 could be spared and for well instructed men to help in holding 
 the established communities from breaking up. Paul in the 
 meantime had copied the government of the Brotherhood and 
 had established communities of his converts. John the elder 
 had also left Rome with several young men that had been pre- 
 pared for the work but he only got as far as Ephesus. Cepheus 
 and three of the men who started from Rome made quite a 
 stop at Ephesus. Ephesus became a centre for the energetic 
 work of John, Cepheus and Paul. As John was the most 
 reverend among the Brotherhood on account of his great age, 
 his diplomacy, the position which he had held as a leading 
 general at Jerusalem, some of those who had been his dis- 
 ciples thought that he ought to hold the place of greatest honor, 
 so that on this small question the Brotherhood came near bring- 
 ing a spirit of strife in their ranks, but John knowing the value 
 of unity from his own experience, appealed to them as their 
 ancient brother to love one another unceasingly. The great 
 body of these men were ignorant and if they had been recog- 
 nized as the oracles of truth, the men who had written the 
 gospels and who had not given a single official copy into the 
 hands of any elder yet might be brushed aside. As there were 
 a large number of spurious gospels afloat which many of them 
 had read and were using some of them, these gospels could 
 be taken up and made official. But the question that was 
 raised did not down until a long time after John's death. 
 
ii2 Introduction 
 
 When the gospels could not be withheld any longer, Mark's 
 was first placed in the hands of the bishops, then came Mat- 
 thew's first, which went to the east, and was translated into 
 Hebrew, then Matthew's second gospel was issued. Many 
 things contained in the four gospels had been written into dis- 
 courses for the instructors, but only a very few of these written 
 discourses were ever made public. Shorthand writers and men 
 who had good memory wrote copies which were called gospels, 
 by putting the matter of two or three discourses into one. 
 Sometimes putting things in obtained from other sources. 
 When a gospel was placed in the hands of a bishop he had to 
 protect it from falling into the hands of enemies. When Cepheus 
 got back to Rome after seven years' absence he got a great 
 reception. Paul had followed him alone intending to try to 
 get his friends admitted to fellowship. He made his way to 
 the Jewish quarter and secured lodgings with a Jew and re- 
 mained in his house a month. He was informed by the Jew 
 that a man who was an important member of the synagogue 
 close by, lived a few doors from him so he called on him. 
 It was John the Presbyter. Paul informed him who he was 
 and how he came to be converted. Paul had met Cepheus in 
 the east and John was with him, but on account of the im- 
 portant position which Cepheus held in the Brotherhood Paul 
 had not paid particular attention to the others who were with 
 him. Of course John had heard about Paul's story in the east, 
 but he said nothing to Paul about it. Paul knew that his 
 coming was known, and as John did not ask him to partake 
 of refreshment and let Paul do all the talking and did not 
 ask him to go with him to any of the houses of other Jews 
 or give him any welcome, he concluded that he would get 
 no welcome from any of them, so he returned nearly broken- 
 hearted. After Cepheus had rested and made his report he 
 started back to the east again with another lot of instructed 
 men. He went back the way he returned on his other journey 
 taking John with him. John was not a good speaker, but he 
 was a good writer. Cepheus took Mark with him this time as 
 his secretary and letter writer, but John was his organizer. 
 This time he remained five years in the east and when he 
 returned he commenced to go through Italy to see how the 
 Brotherhood was doing in the cities. He returned at the end 
 
Man and the Earth 113 
 
 of the year, and as the Brotherhood was quite strong in Rome 
 they bought one of the unused Augustan temples and Cepheus 
 became the superintendent of this house and also the first 
 of Rome, under the name of his adopted father, Linus. 
 Fifteen years after the first preachers went out from Rome, it 
 was found that a larger number of gentiles had joined the 
 Brotherhood than of Jews. The Roman and Greek bishops 
 began to think that it was injurious to the cause to continue 
 flattering the Jewish revolters, and they brought the matter to 
 the attention of the council who advised them to begin to dis- 
 own that any of the revolters had been prominent in organizing 
 their communities. John and all the older Jews who had been 
 instrumental in influencing the Zealots to join the new move- 
 ment were dead. John had been dead many years when the 
 fourth gospel was placed in the hands of the bishops. On 
 account of his great popularity it was given out that he had 
 written that gospel in order that the Jews might accept it. 
 Paul had worked zealously establishing communities against 
 great disadvantages as he did not know that the Zealots 
 among the Jews had formed a religious sect and that they had 
 almost entirely gone into the Brotherhood, but all the older 
 Zealots knew Paul and they would have nothing to do with 
 him, but he got many Jews to join him. As he grew old he 
 became infirm and Luke the physician had to remain with him 
 wherever he went. He had insisted on his converts that it 
 was necessary to put themselves under restraint, so that the 
 edifying lives of his followers would shame the leaders of the 
 Brotherhood into admitting him and his disciples into the fold, but 
 none of the means he used for that purpose accomplished any- 
 thing, and this had helped to make him infirm and old. 
 
 Luke was the only one of Paul's followers that any member 
 of the Brotherhood would associate with. He was a good 
 physician and when he knew of any of the Brotherhod being 
 sick he hastened to him to help him. He was of a happy dis- 
 position and very humorous, so that no member of the Brother- 
 hood could bear to put him off. Paul had ceased traveling 
 about and was stopping at Ephesus where Luke remained with 
 him receiving his brethren and writing letters for Paul. Paul 
 determined to make one more effort to have his followers ad- 
 mitted to the Brotherhood and knowing that Cepheus had gone 
 
ii4 Modernism 
 
 to Rome where he was continually sending out teachers the 
 Brotherhood at Alexandria were also doing the same work. 
 He therefore got some money and he and Luke started for 
 Rome. He told those who came to him that he was feeling 
 better and that he would go to the west and if he needed any 
 of them he would write them to come to him. He gave Luke 
 directions how to travel and when they got to Rome he told 
 Luke to take him to the house where he had lodged when he 
 was there before. Luke did not have much trouble in finding 
 the house and the Jew was still living in the same place. When 
 he got to the house he collapsed and had to go to bed. The 
 traveling had used him up, but the desire to get to Rome 
 sustained him until he was at the end of his journey. Taking 
 only a little nourishment from time to time he died at the 
 end of three weeks. As he had no friends in Rome, during 
 the three weeks that Paul was in bed, Luke called first on John 
 the Presbyter whom he had met in the east and told him about 
 Paul and that he was going to die. John took him on the next 
 Sabbath to the new synagogue where Cepheus preached. Luke 
 stood in the back part as he did not wish to let himself be 
 known. There were many of the Brotherhood in Rome who 
 had heard of Luke's charitable disposition and his good works. 
 He told John to say nothing of Paul's arrival nor anything 
 about himself at present. When Paul died Luke and John 
 called on Cepheus and imparted to him the fact. Cepheus called 
 a meeting of the council and John was instructed to tell Luke 
 to prepare the body of his friend for burial. The council con- 
 cluded that Paul's followers were not responsible for Paul's 
 lies. And as the Brotherhood was now being attacked on many 
 grounds principally by Jewish writers, that it would be good 
 to have all the communities into one fold so that they could 
 present a united front to their enemies. Knowing that Luke 
 would inform his friends of what they did for Paul, they 
 made as great a funeral as the laws would permit and buried 
 Paul with much ceremony. Luke had made it his business 
 to buy every one of the many spurious gospels and other writ- 
 ings of that character that he could spare money for. As he 
 and John were on very friendly terms he asked him if he had 
 any of such writings. John had written several of these small 
 books himself for several purposes and he had a collection of 
 
Man and the Earth 115 
 
 others so he loaned them to Luke. He had a very dear young 
 friend in Antioch whom he had tried to convert, but as Luke 
 could not give him the knowledge he wanted he had not suc- 
 ceeded in converting him. During his stay in Rome through 
 talk with John principally he had discovered many things that 
 were new to him. Paul's followers had discovered that the 
 superintendents of the Brotherhood communities had written 
 evangels, or gospels as they were afterwards called, to preach 
 from, and this give them great advantage over Paul's super- 
 intendents, but Paul ridiculed the one that he heard of, for 
 dealing in senseless genealogies and other things he said were 
 foolish. The wise ones of the Brotherhood, said that Paul's 
 Jesus was the phantom Jesus of the Gnostics although he kept 
 it to himself. When Paul was dead and could no longer give 
 his followers special instructions, they began to feel the need 
 of such a book as the Brotherhood had. Luke had heard his 
 friends speak about this matter more than once, and concluding 
 that he was so near to Paul for a long time, that they would 
 consider an epistle from him which would contain the elements 
 of an evangel or gospel as being dictated by Paul, or at least 
 containing the substance of conversations with Paul on that 
 subject. So using the spurious gospels and his own knowledge 
 he wrote the espistle to his young friend Theophilus of Antioch. 
 After a consultation with Cepheus and John he departed for 
 Alexandria. At Alexandria he showed the epistle he had written 
 to Theophilus, to a friend who made a copy of it, which he 
 began to use as a gospel. Luke then made out a list of 
 Paul's bishops and sent a messenger into Palestine to the nearest 
 bishop with directions to him to send it to another in such 
 a way that the last person to receive it was Theophilus him- 
 self. He wrote the following letter to all the bishops of Paul's 
 brethren, to be taken with the epistle to Theophilus : 
 
 " Three weeks after our arrival in Rome the beloved Paul 
 fell asleep in the Lord, and was buried with great honor by 
 the Brotherhood, as he had no friends here to perform the 
 sorrowful office. Cepheus expressed great sorrow at the funeral, 
 because of the strife that prevailed between the brethren 
 of Paul and the Brotherhood, and hoped that in place of acting 
 as enemies toward each other that they would become friends 
 all working together in the one fold for the cause of Christ. 
 
1 1 6 Modernism 
 
 Therefore let no stumbling block stand in the way to keep 
 the brethren from becoming members of one body in Christ 
 Jesus. Signed Luke the physician and brother of Paul/' 
 
 The Brotherhood at Rome sent a letter to Alexandria to be 
 endorsed by those at that city and afterwards transmitted to 
 the Brotherhood throughout the world, conveying the fact that 
 Paul had died at Rome and imploring the Brotherhood to use 
 all possible means to bring about united action and harmony 
 with Paul's followers, so that they could stand as a wall of 
 defence against Jews and Gentiles. As there had been only 
 five copies of Matthew's first gospel sent out and these had been 
 sent to Palestine and other cities of the east they were soon 
 laid aside, and Luke's epistle was endorsed as a favor to Paul's 
 followers so that all the communities in the east should use 
 one gospel. It was not an easy matter to bring these jarring 
 communities together as one body. 
 
 First along it was the Brotherhood that would not affiliate 
 with Paul in any manner, but now many of Paul's followers 
 would not go into the Brotherhool. Luke and John the 
 Presbyter had remained great friends continually writing to 
 each other about their affairs. They were both very liberal 
 and very much interested in the success of the business they 
 were engaged in. Luke at this time was looked upon by 
 Paul's followers as Paul's successor. He wrote to John to meet 
 him at Alexandria. There had been a large number of small 
 books put out as histories, acts and memoirs of the apostles. 
 Both John and Luke had gathered up a lot of them and the 
 object of Luke's letter to John was on this subject. Cepheus 
 had been the leader of those who went from Rome, his Jewish 
 name was Simon the same as his father's. As Luke's gospel 
 had failed to accomplish all they wished, they believed that it 
 might be accomplished if it could be shown that Cepheus or 
 Simon and Paul worked together in peace and harmony. Hav- 
 ing this object in view through John's suggestion Luke wrote 
 what was called the acts of the apostles. As none of the acts 
 that had been written by other writers had been endorsed by 
 the Brotherhood and made an official document, they also 
 took some of Paul's epistles, for Luke had copies of all of 
 them, and made new copies showing that Simon or Cepheus 
 and Paul had worked together. It should be remembered that 
 
Man and the Earth 117 
 
 all the old Jews were dead who had joined either branch of 
 the brethren. When these documents were made public Paul's 
 friends could find no ground to find fault. And when the Acts 
 of Luke was read it was not long until it received the approval 
 of the leaders of both factions. Still Paul's epistles were not 
 used by any of the Brotherhood. Some of those who were 
 pretty well educated, had studied them for one purpose or 
 another, but not to use in their religious service. The com- 
 plete unity of both branches was not consummated until Alex- 
 ander became bishop of Rome. By this time in nearly every part 
 of the empire there were small communities of the Brother- 
 hood which went by whatever name outsiders gave them. It 
 was soldiers of the Roman army that spread it so extensively. 
 It was not until now that it took the name of Church. 
 Wherever you find in any of the gospels, epistles, acts or other 
 religious writings that name, it demonstrates the time that the 
 word was put into it. In order that the communities should 
 all have one name and disown or abolish the local names they 
 went by, the bishops of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch and other 
 large cities wrote to each other about the matter and it was 
 the unanimous conclusion that the name should be the Catholic 
 Church, that is, a confederacy of communities working together 
 under the name of the Catholic Church. From these centers 
 of population the instructions were sent to all the local bodies 
 that they should disown the names given to them for one cause 
 or another usually by outsiders, and become members of the 
 Catholic Church. After this event an attempt was made to 
 get the people to stop the use of unofficial religious writings, 
 but it took a long time to do it. The first revision of the 
 gospels now took place. The gospel of John which had only 
 been sketched as the last step in unfolding the full attributes 
 of the Messiah, was now filled out. This was done when the 
 Jews no longer held a place of honor or distinction at Rome, 
 and none of them was called upon to look it over. As was 
 stated before in order that the Jews might accept it, it was 
 said that its author was John, that is, the original sketch. 
 They did not examine it with critical eyes, for if they had they 
 would have known that he did not write it, but he was a 
 long time dead before any gospel was put into the hands of 
 a reader. It was unintelligible to many for a long time, for 
 
1 1 8 Modernism 
 
 they had not understood that the Messiah was God. Their 
 conception was master as first stated, and the Messiah as next 
 stated was that of a most extraordinary person filled with charity 
 and love for all mankind, who suffered patiently and forgave 
 his most detested enemies; but God, as the Jews understood 
 it was revengeful, unforgiving, and continually punishing them 
 for their sins. So that some of them contended that if Jesus 
 was God, there must be two gods, the God of the old dispen- 
 sation and the God of the new dispensation. 
 
 However, most of them accepted even if they could not 
 believe, but it became a great mystery which was hard to com- 
 prehend. But as they were revising the gospels then they put 
 in some things which they afterwards declared were vestiges 
 of the spirit of the God of the Old Testament. Such as " those 
 who do not believe will be damned or condemned." There 
 was so much dispute on this question that the College of Pres- 
 byters examined the matter and their verdict was that all the 
 most ancient disciples and the apostles believed that Jesus 
 was the only Son of God equal to the Father. That the term 
 son, simply meant that God came down from heaven, and in 
 order to appear as a man and to suffer for example's sake and 
 for the sins of the world. Many explanations were given which 
 satisfied many, but not all. When the revolters were disowned 
 in the second generation, when the Jews were a small minority, 
 the time and manner of Simon's death which had only been 
 talked about, was written into the gospel, and they confounded 
 him with his son, whose name was Simon and also Cepheus not 
 Cephas. And when John's disciples wanted to gain pre-emi- 
 nence for John they used Simon's son's name to play with to 
 show that the ma'ster had selected Simon to act as leader. 
 The Church was the most democratic organization in fthe 
 empire, all its officers were chosen by the people after it became 
 the Catholic Church. There were some bright, intelligent men, 
 bishops. Many very ignorant men had been converted whose 
 sons had through some means received a good education and 
 quite naturally and almost of necessity they followed their 
 father's religion. When such men became bishops they were 
 of great help to the church. The object of the men who were 
 founders of the Church was to make it the best religion that 
 ever existed. They also intended to make Jesus conform if 
 
Man and the Earth 119 
 
 possible in his words and act to the ideal messenger of Epic- 
 tetus, whose philosophy they were students of. They knew 
 that not many men would suffer tortures and death for any 
 man no matter how perfect he might be. And that the doc- 
 trines of no man would be beyond amendment, so when they 
 had put doctrines into his mouth which they believed were the 
 best that could be made, in order that no one would try to 
 change them, they must of necessity make him a god. 
 
 But men came after them who were unstable in character. 
 When the Emperor Augustus thought that his end was near at 
 hand he made a supper, which he called the supper of the gods. 
 Twelve priests of his order were invited, each one taking the 
 name of one of the gods under whose name he had been wor- 
 shipped. He always favored Dionysius to whom bread and wine 
 were offered as a votive offering not as a sacrifice. When the 
 priests were seated around the table he made a speech to them 
 saying that he had exercised his best judgment in the govern- 
 ment of the empire to secure peace at home and abroad and to 
 try to make his people contented and happy, but knowing that 
 mankind was ever ungrateful to their benefactors, that in a 
 short time his good deeds would be forgotten; knowing this, 
 he had established the cult of which they were his most deserv- 
 ing priests and that he might not be forgotten by all men, 
 he had invited them to this supper of bread and wine which 
 they should when he was gone from among them institute in 
 their temples in memory of him. When he died the Augustine 
 priests immediately instituted this supper as a votive offering 
 to God in memory of Augustus. As all Augustine priests made 
 a sacred promise to commemorate this supper to the end of 
 their days, the seven priests were obliged to carry the institution 
 into the new organization. All the things spoken of in this 
 writing were related by John to his friend James who was a 
 Jew, but it was told under the seal of friendship. In an excited 
 discussion between James and Silas the Monk, James forgot 
 the seal of friendship and told him the story which Silas com- 
 mitted to writing and revealed it to a brother monk, who handed 
 it to another before his death and in this way it was handed 
 down to one monk after another. 
 
 Let us now examine the Jewish legend to see if it will stand 
 the test of close investigation. We have seen in the legend 
 
I2O | Modernism 
 
 where it speaks of the manner in which the Christian religion 
 was founded, that the founders followed the plan adopted by 
 the founders of the religion of Serapis and also of the Augustan 
 cult. Serapis was a composite character created from the 
 mythical biographies of Osiris, Mercury, Dionysius and Hermes, 
 and having the four evangels of Serapis and Augustus before 
 them, they remodeled them to suit the circumstances under 
 which they intended to work out their plan of salvation. Fol- 
 lowing their pattern, necessity compelled them to select four 
 Jewish individuals from whose life and works they could build 
 the composite character of the Jewish Messiah, who must be 
 a wonder worker, a preacher, a prophet and a king. As all 
 the Avatars and Manifestors who personified the sun were 
 born of the Virgin of the Zodiac on the winter solstice, in the 
 cave where the moon was born and reborn; in the stable of 
 Argus, and laid in the manger in the constellation of the Crab, 
 where the Asses fed; crucified when the sun crossed the line, 
 buried in the tomb or cave in the sky where the moon went 
 when it died, then arose out of the cave or tomb on the third 
 night after its disappearance and ascended up to the highest 
 heaven. 
 
 As Jesus was a prominent name during that period among 
 the Jews, and as its significance bore the semblance of national 
 honor and royalty, that name was selected for the Messiah. 
 As Mary had been one of the names of Christina's mother and 
 also of Serapis' and Buddha's mother, that name was selected 
 for the mother of Jesus. In looking over Jewish history they 
 discovered in the Talmud a brief notice of a man of that name 
 who was represented as being a Nazarene, on account of which 
 the Rabbis cut off his hair and washed his head with the 
 water Boleth, so that his hair would grow no more. He was 
 taken to Egypt in his youth, where he studied magic and the 
 art of healing. When he returned he became a wonder worker, 
 that is, a worker of miracles. He is referred to in the Talmud 
 as " that man who is not to be named." He was stoned to 
 death and afterwards crucified by hanging on a tree on the 
 eve of the Passover as a wizard. The legend says this man 
 was selected to represent the miracle working part of Jesus. 
 In the controversies between the early Christian fathers and 
 the Jews, this is the Jesus that the opponents of the Christians 
 
Man and the Earth 121 
 
 referred to. The Jews said, that his mother, whose name was 
 Stada, was the daughter of a Roman soldier, that her char- 
 acter was bad and they called her vile names. There was a 
 noted controversy between Celsus a pagan, and Origen the 
 most prolific writer of the Christians at that time. This con- 
 troversy between Origen and Celsus was intentionally dis- 
 arranged so as to make it appear that Celsus was not alive when 
 Origen was replying to his attack on the Christians. The Jesus 
 of the Talmud is the person to whom Celsus refers as the 
 founder of Christianity, and it nowhere appears in the argu- 
 ment of Origen that he corrects Celsus in this matter. This 
 Jesus went to Egypt in his youth, was a worker of miracles, 
 a healer of diseases, was crucified and hung on a tree as a 
 wizard. He was also a Nazarene. So much of this man's 
 life as was written in the Talmud was applied to the gospel 
 Jesus, and Jesus exemplified the character of a wizard at the 
 beginning of his work when he passed through a mob of 
 men unseen who intended to hurl him from a rock to kill 
 him. Peter and Paul refer in their epistles to a Jesus who was 
 hung on a tree. When the opponents of Christianity had reviled 
 this man and his mother until it became necessary for them to 
 either own or disown him, the writers of the gospels having 
 omitted to state where Jesus resided, now wrote into them that 
 he livetd in the city of Nazareth, that was why he was called 
 a Nazarene, but that would not make him a Nazarene, but it 
 answered the purpose even though there was no city in Galilee 
 named Nazareth, only a small hamlet of that name. 
 
 A New Testament was published in New York with the 
 approval of Bishop Hughes. The second chapter twenty-third 
 verse of Matthew reads as follows: "And coming he dwelt in 
 a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was 
 said by the prophets, that he shall be called a Nazarite." The 
 Dowey (Catholic Bible) and all Protestant Bibles that I have 
 consulted use the word " Nazarene " not Nazarite. But in the 
 life of Christ by Rev. Francis De Ligney, a Jesuit, the word is 
 Nazarite. All these bibles claim to be true translations of the 
 Latin Vulgate. The Jesus of the Talmud was a Nazarene. But 
 the sentence in Matthew " That it might be fulfilled which was 
 said by the prophets that he shall be called a Nazarene, or a 
 Nazarite," was what Jerome in a similar case called a bluff. 
 
122 Modernism 
 
 The Bible has been searched, even the margin notes, for the 
 prophets that said it, but they have never been found. It is 
 evident that the Jesuits are at work on Bible bluffs, and 
 we may expect hereafter that all testaments published under 
 their eyes, will have it Nazarite not Nazarene. As the gospel 
 Jesus was a composite creation, no one among the early preach- 
 ers was ever authorized to acknowledge any historical Jesus as 
 the Christ. The gospels say that Jesus preached in Judea, Gali- 
 lee, Samaria and other places as far as Tyre and Sidon, and 
 that he was killed through the weakness of Pilate and at tfie 
 instigation of Caiaphas the high priest. 
 
 The history of Josephus shows that a man whom he does 
 not name was addressing public gatherings of people, and in 
 consequence of the language he used about the author's friends, 
 he calls him a liar who contrived everything so that the multi- 
 tude might be pleased. The inference to be drawn from the 
 language of Josephus in reference to this man is, that he had 
 been frequently addressing public gatherings of the people on 
 Jewish affairs, and the reason Josephus does not name him is 
 that he had been publicly criticizing his brother pharisees, so 
 that he was another " man who must not be named." He states 
 that the killing of this man sent Pilate to Rome to be tried for 
 murder, and although he does not connect his brother Caiaphas 
 with the murder, it is evident that he was connected with it, 
 for the president of the province expelled him from the high 
 priesthood at the same time. The writers of the gospels being 
 Romans not only throw the blame for his death principally 
 on the high priest, but they blame the Jewish mob, who Josephus 
 says followed him approvingly. It is evident that the work 
 of this man suggested the preaching part of the gospel Jesus. 
 It seems evident also that he was quite a public character and 
 that his name was Jesus for John certainly knew him and 
 possibly there was love between them which he often spoke 
 about. This man's work strongly sustains the Jewish legend. 
 If this man had been a healer or miracle worker, Josephus 
 would have called him a magician. It is likely that his public 
 speaking was what might be classed at the time of a political 
 nature, for the innovaters at that time wanted some man learned 
 in the law to attack the rulers, and as the high priests were 
 tyrannical, and the pharisees power-loving and avaricious, while 
 
Man and the Earth 123 
 
 they were strenuous in the observance of the technical features 
 of the law, and oppressed the poor, so that his criticism of 
 their actions was good preaching. Following the Jewish legend 
 the person selected to perform the part of the prophet, is re- 
 ferred to in Book VI and chapter five of the Jewish Wars. He 
 says that " One Jesus, the son of a plebeian, came to the temple 
 during the feast of the Tabernacles four years before the war 
 began and cried out a voice from the east, a voice from the 
 west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem 
 and the holy house, a voice against the bridegrooms and the 
 brides, and a voice against the whole people." (This is where 
 the writers of the gospel got the voice of the Baptist crying in 
 the wilderness from.) This was his cry by day and by night 
 as he went through all the lanes of the city. He was arrested 
 and beaten many times. Finally the rulers thinking he was 
 crazy took him before the Roman procurator when he was 
 beaten till his bones were laid bare, yet he made no supplication 
 for himself nor shed any tears. The Roman procurator then 
 asked who he was and whence he came but Jesus answered 
 him not, but still kept up the cry woe, woe to Jerusalem. The 
 procurator finally dismissed him, but he kept up the cry of 
 woe to Jerusalem. At last he was killed by a stone from a 
 Roman engine as he was going around on the wall. There is 
 much more about him than stated here. The gospel of Mat- 
 thew says they brought Jesus bound to Pontius Pilate who 
 asked him who he was and whence he came and Jesus answered 
 him never a word. Mark says " They delivered Jesus to Pilate 
 who asked him several questions, but Jesus still answered him 
 nothing." Luke says "And Herod questioned him in many 
 words, but Jesus answered him nothing," and John remarks, 
 " Pilate entered the hall again and he said to Jesus 'Whence 
 art thou?' but Jesus gave him no answer." All the gospels 
 say that Jesus was practically dismissed by Pilate. This Jesus 
 was the man whom the Augustine priests selected to have his 
 record applied as a prophet to the gospel Jesus. There is no 
 practical difference between the prophesies of this Jesus in 
 relation to the destruction of Jerusalem, the people and the 
 temple and the gospel Jesus. Every time the question as to 
 who he was and whence he came is put to them they answer 
 it the same way. All the gospels say that Jesus was scourged 
 
124 Modernism 
 
 and Josephus says this man was beaten till his bones were 
 laid bare. During the time that this Jesus was prophesying he 
 did no work but lived on the charity of well disposed people. 
 There is no account that the gospel Jesus did any work during 
 his travels or preaching. According to the gospels, the final 
 and most effectual charge that was brought against Jesus by 
 the high priest was that he said he was a king. 
 
 According to John Pilate said to Jesus, "Art thou a king 
 then?" Jesus answered "Thou sayest that I am a king, for 
 this was I born and for this came I into the world." Luke 
 says, " Pilate asked Jesus if he was king of the Jews and Jesus 
 answered, thou sayest it." According to Mark and Matthew 
 the same questions and answers are given. They put on his 
 head a crown of thorns and mocking him said, " Hail king of 
 the Jews." All the ' gospel writers say they crucified him 
 with a crown of thorns on his head and an inscription on the 
 cross over his head the King of the Jews. John makes it " Jesus 
 of Nazareth King of the Jews." When Anthony invaded Judea 
 after a number of battles Antigonas, who claimed to be King 
 of the Jews, was turned over to him. When he was crucified 
 with a crown of thorns on his head and the inscription placed 
 on the cross " the King of the Jews," Herod had bribed Anthony 
 with gold to give him the kingdom. Antigonas was a poor 
 general, but made as good a fight as he was able against Herod 
 and the Romans, but when taken prisoner by the Roman gen- 
 eral he begged for his life to be spared, this act caused the 
 Roman officer to laugh at him calling him a woman. When 
 turned over to Anthony it is likely that he performed the act 
 of weakness again so to humiliate and disgrace him he ordered 
 him to be crucified with a crown of thorns on his head and 
 the inscription placed over his head the " King of the Jews/' 
 Where the application of this man's disgraceful end to the gospel 
 story of Jesus comes in is that Antigonas was no real king. 
 The Romans held dominion over Judea and he had never been 
 recognized as a king. He married a woman who was one of 
 the last heirs of the Hasmonian kings and started to fight to 
 gain the kingdom, therefore he was what is called a pretender. 
 Now if the story of the gospel Jesus was true, he could not 
 be looked upon as a king on account of claiming heirship from 
 David, whose bones had long since gone into ashes or dust. 
 
Man and the Earth 125 
 
 therefore in any historical light he could be nothing but a 
 pretender. This is where the exact similarity comes in. This 
 is why the story of Antigonas fits that of Jesus, and this is 
 why it was applied to him by the gospel writers. As the Jewish 
 Messiah had to fill out all the requirements of his predecessors, 
 he had to be crucified and they used Antigonas whom many 
 Jews loved in his day and nearly all of those who were men 
 at the time knew of, as the fourth man to play a part in their 
 tragedy. The fate of Antigonas must have been in the original 
 copy of Josephus, but he uses the words of another historian 
 who said that such a disgraceful death as Antigonas suffered 
 had never been known to be inflicted on a king. Dion Cassius, 
 the Roman historian, who wrote at the latter part of the second 
 century, copied what he wrote about the Jews mostly from 
 Josephus, and says, Anthony stretched Antigonas on a cross 
 with a crown of thorns on his head and the inscription of 
 " King of the Jews " placed over it on the cross, so that the 
 disgraceful end of Antigonas would cause those Jews who loved 
 Antigonas never to think of making one of his sons king of 
 the Jews. When the apochryphal gospels and other semi-Chris- 
 tian writings were put in circulation, some of the writers had 
 copies of Josephus and other Jewish writers that very little is 
 known about at the present day. 
 
 You have seen that none of the official gospels, or memoirs 
 of the apostles, as some called them, were placed in the 
 hands of the preachers for a long time. The writers of the 
 spurious gospels and others were hunting through Jewish his- 
 tories to find who the Jesus was that the preachers were talking 
 about, so that nearly every bad character of the name of Jesus 
 recorded by Josephus principally, was called the founder of the 
 Brotherhood by their enemies, and as certain incidents in the 
 lives of some of these Jesuses were tacked into some of the 
 spurious gospels, this fact gave ground for what was called 
 "the blasphemous work of the adversaries of the Brother- 
 hood." A notorious robber mentioned by Josephus was claimed 
 to be its founder, and there was so much talk about him, that 
 he is referred to in the gospel where it says that he was reckoned 
 with the wicked. The Jews who were taken to Rome by Titus, 
 and their sons and daughters, were the first to become mem- 
 bers of the Brotherhood, as they believed that its main object 
 
126 Modernism 
 
 was to perpetuate the memory and justify the acts of those 
 who rebelled against the authority of the high priests and the 
 pharisees. The most prominent men in the revolt were named 
 as the original twelve apostles. In the original gospels there 
 were no dates given and everything was done to prevent any 
 one from knowing when they were written or when any of 
 the events related in them had taken place. When it was pub- 
 licly announced that the crucifixion occurred under Pilate, the 
 small number of spurious gospels that had been written was 
 soon followed by nearly fifty others. 
 
 You have seen that John, whom Josephus calls John of 
 Gischala, was one of the very prominent men during the earliest 
 years of the preaching of the gospel. John was born about 
 the beginning of the century and his wonderful constitution 
 preserved him till the early part of the second century. Cepheus, 
 whose Jewish name was Simon, being the son of Simon who 
 became supreme commander of the Jews at the siege of Jeru- 
 salem, was the first to take a band of preachers to Alexandria 
 and Palestine. During John's life and after his death, his dis- 
 ciples had tried to attain pre-eminence for John and for them- 
 selves, because of the high position he held at the siege of 
 Jerusalem. John's name had been given to the fourth gospel 
 on account of the estimation he was held in by the Jews and 
 also that the Jews would not think of rejecting it. Before that 
 gospel was put into the hands of the preachers it was revised 
 to show that the master had selected Simon to be the leader 
 of his apostles. Much later in time, when the Jewish revolters 
 were being disowned the eighteenth verse was put in John's 
 gospel to convince John's disciples. Simon having lived for a 
 long time among the Idumeans, Josephus noting that he had 
 been called Simon Bar Giaora, when he was first referred to in 
 the gospel, he was called Simon Bar Jona using the Idumean 
 phrase in place of the Jewish phrase Simon Ben Jona, but 
 this was done after the revolters were disowned by the gospel 
 writers. The name Peter was taken from the tragedy of 
 Prometheus, the fisherman Petrus. The character of this fisher- 
 man is described in the XVI chap. 2ist and 22nd verses of Matt, 
 in nearly the same manner that it is described in the tragedy 
 of Prometheus. As Paul, who changed his name from Saulus 
 so that he would not be known, did not know anything about 
 
Man and the Earth 127 
 
 what the gospel writers were doing, always referred to the 
 leader of the Brotherhood as Cepheus, but in order that the 
 name would convey a meaning somewhat similar to Peter in the 
 language they usually used, when they got Paul's epistles in 
 their custody they wrote it Cephas. Later gospel revisions 
 got the names of the older Simon and his son mixed as the 
 Jewish legend says young Simon had the Jewish name of his 
 father, and also that of the Augustine priest who had adopted 
 him whose name was Cepheus Linus. Cepheus therefore be- 
 came the first superintendent of the Brotherhood and after- 
 wards bishop of Rome. 
 
 On his second visit to the east he made a long stop at Antioch. 
 The question of pre-eminence between John's followers and 
 those of Cepheus had spread from Ephesus to Antioch. From 
 this city he got in communication with all his followers in nearly 
 every part of the east. It was here that he either assumed the 
 office of superintendent or was elected to that office. Your 
 attention has been called to the fact that no dates or the names 
 of reigning kings were put into the original four gospels, but 
 as Luke's gospel was a compilation or selection from apocryphal 
 gospels and such matter as he had learned from the preaching 
 of Paul, the great caution that was observed by the writers of 
 the original four was neglected by Luke. As this gospel imme- 
 diately was placed in the hands of Paul's followers, for a 
 long time its contents was indelibly impressed on their memory, 
 as it was the single story of one man written in historical order. 
 The birth of Jesus being placed at the Cyrenian taxation, the 
 beginning of his preaching at the fifteenth year of Tiberius and 
 the government of Pontius Pilate. Being drawn from many 
 sources, even some of the preaching of his brethren he made 
 Jesus say, " That the blood of all the prophets which was shed 
 from the foundation of the world may be required of this gen- 
 eration. From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias 
 who was slain between the altar and the temple, verily I say 
 unto you it will be required of this generation." It should not 
 be necessary to remind the reader of the fact that Zacharias 
 was slain more than thirty years after the time that the gospels 
 say Jesus was crucified. 
 
 Although there is nothing in the New Testament that shows 
 that Paul was ever in Rome yet the Jewish legend says he 
 
128 . Modernism 
 
 was there twice, dying there on his last visit. Although his 
 followers became a part of the Catholic Confederacy, they still 
 used his gospel principally and his epistles, but that part of 
 the church that had not been Paulites made no use of his 
 epistles, except a few of the more educated, who merely kept 
 them with them for one purpose or another, this fact kept the 
 gospel of Luke and many of Paul's epistles from being revised 
 less than they otherwise would have, but in no great length 
 of time all the epistles and Luke's gospel would have been 
 shorn of every sentence which the revisers did not like to 
 preserve for future generations. But in a short time after the 
 church had reached a peaceful and prosperous condition, one 
 of the followers of Paul, a layman and a rich ship owner, a 
 deep student of church history, an able theologian, a man of 
 rare vigor and energy opened a breach in the ranks of the 
 church, which if it had not been for the effective organization 
 which had been secured through over forty years of persevering 
 and continuous labor under the most difficult circumstances 
 the Catholic Church which had now arrived at the goal to which 
 its founders looked with anxious eyes, might have been de- 
 stroyed, or at least have fallen back to the position of a minor 
 Christian sect. Marcion repudiated all the gospels except 
 Luke's, and of the epistles of Paul he excepted only ten, and parts 
 of the ten he denounced as spurious. Paul was his single 
 apostle of Jesus Christ, and he never abandoned the design 
 of gaining the whole membership of the church to his gospel 
 and ideas concerning the Christ. He established his seat at 
 Rome and traveled east and west, first arousing the dying love 
 for Paul that still slumbered in the minds of the oldest converts 
 alive of the man from Tarsus. What there was left of these 
 flocked to his standard, and with the impetuosity and force of 
 Luther at a later epoch, his watchword was nearly the same 
 in some respects. He as Paul was ignorant of the real foun- 
 dation of ithe religion ; he hoped to bring it back to what he 
 thought Paul's conception of that foundation was. You have 
 seen that Cepheus and the other founders of the Brotherhood 
 desired after Paul's death to bring into the one fold all those 
 who believed in the main doctrines taught by them, not because 
 of Paul's conception of the Christ or Paul's letters, but be- 
 cause his followers were a respectable body of Christians. They 
 
Man and the Earth 129 
 
 were honest and faithful workers in the cause and no matter 
 what Paul's credentials were, they were not responsible for 
 what they did not know. It was easier for a large number 
 to withstand the attacks and insults of outsiders than to bear 
 the taunts of enemies and half friends, and the positive injuries 
 of pronounced enemies. Therefore when Paul's followers came 
 into the fold a great object had been accomplished. If the 
 leaders of the Brotherhood had a full knowledge of Paul's 
 conception of the Christ and if that conception was the same 
 as Marcion's, they would by wise diplomacy eradicate that con- 
 ception from the minds of such of Paul's friends as had grasped 
 that conception of the Christ. 
 
 Of Paul's many lies his greatest lie was about the manner 
 of his conversion, this lie being his only commission as a 
 preacher. The founders of the religion knew that the Christ 
 of their invention could speak to no man, therefore they knew 
 that Paul was a notorious liar for claiming that their com- 
 posite character ever spoke to Paul or any one else. On 
 this account the Brotherhood never ceased to call him a liar 
 and an imposter. And Paul told so many lies that outside of 
 his own friends no confidence was placed in his word. Paul 
 had learned the Gnostic idea of the Christ, and if he had hon- 
 estly desired to become a faithful preacher of the Brotherhood, 
 he would have gone to them for instructions in order to get 
 a commission to preach, but he did not wish to take orders 
 from any one. He wanted to be boss, and he wanted to preach 
 a gospel of his own. He expected that his lie would be believed 
 by the majority of the preachers as he knew they were ignor- 
 ant, but he was ignored by them at the advice of the leaders. 
 
 These expecting that a larger number of the Jews would rally 
 to their standard, were disappointed, and they then gave their 
 attention to the pagans. Here again Paul tried to make him- 
 self good by claiming that Jesus commissioned him to preach 
 to the Gentiles, but the Brotherhood still called him a liar. 
 When Marcion, with his wealth, zeal and ambition tried to 
 make the fully instructed successors of the founders of the 
 Catholic Church believe and accept Paul's conception of the 
 Christ he failed. Although he had made a wide breach in 
 the church membership, he did not have good organizers to 
 perfect his work and when he ceased from his labors, his lead- 
 
130 Modernism 
 
 ers divided his followers into differing sects and the great 
 majority went back into the older organization, but Paul's ghost 
 went marching on. Luke's gospel and Paul's epistles were 
 preserved without such a revision as they might have been 
 subjected to, if Marcion had not fought to give them first place 
 in Christian history and theology. Alexander Pope who was 
 a wise poet said " Whatever is is right," if that saying contains 
 the truth, it was a good thing that Marcion lived and fought 
 to make his idea of right prevail, but the writer of these lines 
 does not believe that everything that is is right, therefore he 
 thinks that it was a great misfortune that Paul's letters were 
 preserved one day after the death of the liar. The founders 
 of the religion had a worthy object in view and none of them 
 wrote a line with the hope that his name would be preserved. 
 There never was a time that Cepheus gave Paul the right hand 
 of fellowship, if that had occurred there would have been no 
 necessity for Luke to write either a gospel or an Acts of the 
 apostles. After the death of Marcion Paul's epistles were used 
 to help bring back to the fold those who became his followers, 
 and some of the unnatural ideas of Paul soon became popular 
 in the church. Paul was a bachelor, so was Marcion. 
 
 In the gospels there had been no precept calling on any 
 prelate to refrain from marrying, but Paul being a bachelor 
 himself, advised others performing religious functions to remain 
 single, even recommending this unnatural idea to the men and 
 women of his communities. This condition of things did not 
 prevail in the Brotherhood. After Marcion's exploits and 
 preaching had made an impression on the minds of the rulers 
 of the church, celibacy began to take root among the priests. 
 Finally when the state had joined hands with the church celi- 
 bacy had become obligatory on all performing religious func- 
 tions. The three men, Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine, whose 
 acts and words have ever since ruled the Catholic Church, were 
 converts to the teaching of Paul and next to Paul are respon- 
 sible for all the moral and intellectual degradation that followed. 
 For sixty-seven years after Constantine, the emperors did 
 little to injure the social, financial or political interests of the 
 majority, as their advisors were patriots and statesmen. The 
 numerical strength of the Christians, after sixty-seven years of 
 imperial patronage is described by St. Augustine in the year three 
 
Man and the Earth 131 
 
 hundred eighty in these words. " The overwhelming majority of 
 the people and nearly the whole of the nobility are still pagan." 
 And St. Jerome writes that the Christians are less spiritual than 
 ever. He gives an account of the moral condition of young 
 priests which is nearly as corrupt as that of their order during 
 the middle ages. Although the growth of the church had been 
 slow even with the help of imperial patronage, the means for 
 its more rapid growth was furnished by the election of Ambrose, 
 an ambitious lawyer and politician, bishop of Milan. Gratian, 
 a boy of sixteen years, and Valentinian six years, were the 
 emperors of the west. The seat of the imperial court was at 
 Milan. By his position of Bishop of Milan, Ambrose became 
 spiritual director of the two young emperors, who were very 
 religious and superstitious. Taking the eldest of these under 
 his management, after two years the triumph of Christianity 
 began in earnest. When the time came for the young emperor 
 to assume the robe and title of Pontifex Maximus, he refused 
 to accept them. This was done at the instigation of Ambrose 
 who was then beginning to perform the functions of that office 
 without the title or robe. The bishop of Rome always exercised 
 great influence, because of the wealth of the Roman see, but 
 no such title as " The Pope," was recognized until after the 
 time of Ambrose who had attained greater political power than 
 ever had been exercised by any bishop. Through his influence 
 over the young emperors of the west Theodosius was made 
 emperor of the east and now he became spiritual director to 
 the emperors of the west and east, and at his dictation every 
 bit of patronage which the pagans had received for a thousand, 
 years was now taken from them. Some of the Christian priests 
 now humorously remarked to their pagan neighbors, that now 
 everything was as it should be as all religions were on equal 
 terms, so the pagans accepted the altered conditions and imme- 
 diately assumed the expense connected with their religious wor- 
 ship. Ambrose did not think the pagans would try to support 
 the expenses of their temples as it would take an enormous 
 sum of money, but they did. He then induced the Emperor 
 Valentinian in three hundred ninety-one to issue an edict com- 
 manding the pagan temples to be closed and all sacrifices dis- 
 continued. Most of the temples were closed, sealed and some 
 of them were demolished. Being debarred from entering the 
 
132 i Modernism 
 
 temples some of the priests held services outside of them. That 
 this evasion of the law might not spread too far, another edict 
 was issued imposing a fine and imprisonment on all who should 
 dare to cultivate any other than the Catholic religion. As the 
 Catholic Church had adopted all the captivating features of 
 pagan worship, when the mass of the people saw the temples 
 closed they walked into the Catholic churches in droves. Within 
 the space of twenty years under the dictation of Ambrose, the 
 Catholic Church had grown from a small minority of the com- 
 mon people to a majority of them. 
 
 The Catholic Church was now made the religion of the 
 state, and the public revenues were used for the construction 
 of churches and the support of religion. But still a majority 
 of the nobility and the intellectual classes were pagans. A 
 decree was now issued to suppress these classes altogether. It 
 excluded from the services of the emperors all enemies of the 
 Catholic religion. While Ambrose was Bishop of Milan and 
 spiritual director of the emperors, Eusebius Hieronymus, a 
 half savage monk was occupying rooms in one of the palaces 
 on the Aventine, teaching the daughters of the wealthy and 
 gathering gold to feed the army of professional beggars spread- 
 ing themselves over Africa. And Jerome, in his cell at Beth- 
 lehem, through his letters established the cult of the virgin 
 and virginity, as an imitator of Paul, and through his brutal but 
 captivating letters to Roman ladies, taught them how to con- 
 vert their husbands and sons. But the insane propaganda 
 of the virgin cult insisting on virgins and widows to take a 
 vow of perpetual chastity, was the means of making Ambrose 
 and many leading bishops, write special epistles in favor of 
 the cult of the virgin that would make a horse laugh at the 
 present day. Think of men whose writings and other work 
 are ruling the Catholic world even to-day, declaring that the 
 Lord would provide other means than the natural one to 
 increase the population of the earth if virgins and widows would 
 take a vow of chastity and keep it. And that a small number 
 of matrons would under God's providence be so prolific in the 
 number of children at a birth, that the usual rate of increase 
 would continue. That married men and their wives should 
 live as much apart as possible and only come together for the 
 purpose that the Lord had instituted matrimony, to increase 
 
Man and the Earth 133 
 
 the number of souls. Jerome as an expounder of doctrine, in 
 relation to the soul held that the Lord united the soul with 
 the body of the unborn infant, when the body was ready to 
 receive it. Augustine thought this idea militated against the 
 doctrine of original sin. He thought souls might be propa- 
 gated by parents to their children, but Jerome's idea was ac- 
 cepted by the church as the true doctrine. 
 
 However, on the question of virginity and men's connection 
 with women they bent the law of restraint until it broke, as 
 their successors while accepting their doctrine of faith, the des- 
 pising of intellectual exercises, and the condemnation and dam- 
 nation of mental liberty as followers of Paul, ignored and 
 laughed at restraint. Augustine as the most valiant and vic- 
 torious defender of doctrine, and the animating spirit of synods, 
 conclaves and councils, carried the New Testament fixing the 
 canon practically as we have it to-day at the council of Car- 
 thage. The political policy adopted by Ambrose was continued 
 throughout the empire or what was left of it in the day of 
 Pius IX when Victor Emanuel entered the city of Rome, cap- 
 turing the seat and citadel of the western empire, leaving only 
 a garden to the Pope as his temporal kingdom. 
 
 It would not be doing entire justice to our subject, to leave 
 the gap of time between Ambrose and Victor Emanuel entirely 
 unnoticed. Ambrose being a politician first, and a follower 
 of Paul as a Christian bishop, his Pauline education destroyed 
 his appreciation of patriotism, intellectual acquirements and the 
 beneficence of a great social civilization in which men and 
 women could enjoy all the happiness that springs from the 
 natural aspirations of the human heart enjoyable mostly in the 
 marriage state, which his office of bishop precluded him from ex- 
 periencing. Being ambitious he aimed to make his profession in 
 life and the church whose cause he had espoused, the governing 
 power whose ecclesiastical organization should rule the state. 
 Like the majority of politicians in all ages, he was ignorant of the 
 value of science and the arts, and superficial in general knowl- 
 edge. Under these circumstances, his Pauline education or 
 convictions caused his deplorable and unfortunate bigotry. 
 
 For over three hundred years before the Christian era, all 
 the arts and every branch of science had been cultivated in 
 Greece, such as philosophy, astronomy, painting, elocution, 
 
134 Modernism 
 
 sculpture, oratory, poetry, history, the drama, medicine, music, 
 mathematics, and everything else that elevates the mind or gives 
 strength and vigor to the body; and in time these elevating and 
 civilizing pursuits were transferred to Rome where it became 
 fashionable to imitate the great Greek masters. Before the 
 time of Ambrose while a small number tried to practice the 
 whole of Paul's philosophy of self-effacement and the abandon- 
 ment of all that the world holds valuable, after his time, faith 
 became the only virtue, and if it had not been for the revolt 
 of Luther, the church might have died like an old tree of 
 rottenness at the heart. Dominated by the philosophy of Paul 
 as interpreted by Jerome, Augustine and Ambrose, the products 
 of the intellectual labor and the patient industry of artistic 
 genius, which beautified, enriched and ennobled Greece and 
 Rome for centuries, were under the dominance of Paul, as 
 interpreted by Jerome, Augustine and Ambrose, buried under 
 the dust there to lie until a Mohammedan spade dug them up. 
 It is written in that allegorical poem of John the Presbyter, 
 called the Book of Revelation that there was silence in heaven 
 for the space of half an hour. Put your ear now to the 
 trumpet of time and listen to the sounds that flow on the 
 summer breezes of many centuries. In the distance you hear 
 the echo of the sepulchral voice of the priest and the mournful 
 chant of monastic prisoners. The tools of the sculptor are 
 silent. You cannot hear the movement of the painter's brush 
 In vain do you strain your ear to try to catch the sound of 
 the voice of the political orator or dramatic artist. And if your 
 amorous or patriotic soul should prompt you to try to catch 
 a melodious strain from the lute of an epic or love-impassioned 
 poet, you listen in vain. A silence as dead as the grave, dis- 
 turbed by no sound save that of the voice of the priest, the 
 clash of sword blades, the twisting of the wheels of torture 
 and the clank of chains. But Arabian enterprise dug up some 
 of the treasures of Grecian lore from beneath the dust of ages, 
 and putting them on the points of their spears shoved them 
 down the throats of Christian soldiers on the plains of Palestine. 
 Bagdad in the tenth century under the Mohammedan Caliphs 
 was the first seat of artistic and scientific learning that had 
 existed since the time that Hypatia was brutally murdered at 
 Alexandria. Refinement and art culture were carried from this 
 
Man and the Earth 135 
 
 famous seat of learning to Cordova in Spain. From Cordova 
 the first wave of artistic and scientific thought made its way 
 into western Europe. 
 
 Another wave, rolling directly from Bagdad, overwhelmed the 
 first onslaught of the Crusaders. Once more from the schools 
 of Cordova philosophy and art sent another wave that pierced 
 the heart of Christendom. Art and skepticism now marched 
 hand in hand. The poet took up his pen and soon the experi- 
 mental lines were traced. Slowly the child of genius labored to 
 catch the tints of blinding colors. Slowly he moved his chisel 
 in tracing the forms of animals and men. Slowly the voice 
 was tuned to sink in softest cadence and to soar aloft along 
 the higher notes of music's staff. The seeds of art are sown 
 anew, and when the summer's sun of Mother Genius touched 
 the tender twigs with smiles of gladness, the face of nature 
 changed from a countenance deformed by mental thorns and 
 thistles to fields of fairest flowers and blossoming groves, and 
 rippling brooks, and perfumed air laden with the sounds of 
 social music. Popes now fought against kings for continued 
 supreme power, the only means by which the advancing wave 
 of freedom could be overthrown. And kings fought for inde- 
 pendence against the Pope. And whilst combat raged Averroes 
 sowed the seed of skeptical philosophy. Greece and Rome 
 arose from the dead and the amorous songs about their social 
 gods and goddesses soon pulled the mask of slavish super- 
 stition from the brow of the fairest portion of humanity. A 
 revolution in the intellectual and religious life of Europe began 
 after the fall of Constantinople. The Arabian philosophers had 
 carried the torch of learning into Spain much earlier, but it 
 was not until Christian Europe had been battered on the east 
 and western flanks, that the iron-handed sovereignty of the 
 church of Rome began to be defied. Scarcely had the last 
 Moor been driven out of Spain, than Columbus opened the 
 gates of a new world. Then that intrepid seagod, Magellan, 
 demonstrated the rotundity of the earth. The atmosphere now 
 because pregnant with enterprise. Man had awakened from the 
 slumber of the dark ages. Luther defied the ecclesiastical 
 cohorts of Rome. Henry the Eighth, that burly monarch, 
 performed an act of civilization greater than he knew. If he 
 did not purify society, he helped most essentially to destroy 
 
136 Modernism 
 
 a power that was more cruel, more debauched, more dreaded 
 than himself. He crushed the Papal power in Great Britain 
 and Protestantism became a fact. Protestantism now burst 
 upon the world with a fanatic fury only paralleled by the march 
 of the first Mohammed. 
 
 Religion assumed the character of a seething volcano in many 
 places. The ingenious but savage Calvin, whose mind was filled 
 with the ambiguous mutterings of the bloody prophets of Judea 
 and the insane spirit of Paul raised the standard of revolt 
 against Luther as well as Roman Catholicism. Again were the 
 arts struck down, again were men and women called upon to 
 shrink in slavish terror from the wrath of Jehovah, to walk 
 the earth in fear and trembling and to thank the Lord for all 
 the cruel sufferings he heaped upon their undeserving heads. 
 Although the cry of faith was still the loudest, a reformation 
 in the morals of men began to take root. Copernicus inspired 
 by the voyage of Magellan, which proved the spherical form 
 of the earth beyond any power of dispute, using the suggestions 
 of all others who had no knowledge of this fact, said the sun 
 was the center of the planetary system. Pythagoras using the 
 idea of a central fire which had been evolved by an Indian 
 philosopher, made this fire the center around which the sun, 
 the planets and all the stars revolved. 
 
 At a much later time, the causes which suggested the idea 
 of a central fire were not known, the Pythagorean school then 
 supposing Pythagoras meant that the sun was the central object, 
 taught that doctrine. The history of astronomy through all the 
 time afterwards included this idea of the Pythagoreans, and al- 
 though it was condemned by Augustine and most of the church 
 fathers who gave any attention to astronomy, yet it lived in 
 the history of astronomy. The spherical shape of the earth, 
 had been taught in the Alexandrian schools long before the 
 Christians had any say in these matters, but when they did have 
 something to say it was in favor of a flat earth. The positive 
 proof of the earth being round being a settled fact, this fact 
 did not need much other proof to sustain the heliocentric theory. 
 However, the church teachers had been teaching a flat earth, 
 and that the earth was the center of the universe. But Coperni- 
 cus had no public defender until Giordano Bruno escaped from 
 his convent cell, and with a soul more aspiring and enthusi- 
 
Man and the Earth 137 
 
 astic than Hannibal, entered the intellectual arena, shattered 
 the crystal vault of heaven into fragments and established a 
 new heaven and new earth, and from the burning embers of 
 his charred corpse science again arose to life. Galileo, with 
 greater opportunities fearing the fate of Bruno in his old age, 
 recanted the doctrine that the earth moves. The superstitious 
 halo that enveloped the person of kings, princes and ecclesi- 
 astics, soon became the target of the humorous Rabelais and 
 others. Poets, dramatists, philosophers, and political economists, 
 leaving the field of religion to kings, priests and ministers, bore 
 the advancing wave of human aspirations and progress onward 
 until it broke with tempestuous fury on the aged walls of social 
 power and crystalized privilege. The continent of America 
 which had arisen from the sea like the sudden appearance of 
 a blazing comet, caused the minds of thinking men in Europe 
 to cast their eyes to the west toward the fabled Isles of the 
 Blessed. In time they heard of two larger islands, one north 
 the other south. The northwestern part of the southern island 
 and the southwestern part of the northern island were inhabited 
 by people who were wealthy in gold, silver and cultivated lands. 
 A small number of Spanish adventurers with some horses 
 and firearms, neither of which the inhabitants had ever seen 
 the like, appeared suddenly in their country. The priests of 
 these people had been educated in the doctrine of the Avatar 
 system, and the prophets of these people had announced, before 
 the invasion of the Spaniards, that the time approached for 
 the appearance of their Messiah. In consequence of this belief 
 by the people, the Spanish adventurers robbed them of their gold 
 and silver and not until they had murdered thousands of them 
 did they offer any resistance to them. Thirteen hundred years 
 before these Spanish adventurers landed in Mexico the Jews who 
 had imbibed the doctrine of the Indian Fakers about Avatars, 
 believing that one of these Avatars was going to redeem their 
 country from the dominion of Rome, commenced a war that 
 almost annihilated the Jewish race in a vain struggle suggested 
 by a prediction or prophesy contained in their sacred books. 
 And here again in Mexico and Peru the same doctrine had 
 crossed the ocean and through its blighting influence an innocent 
 people became the victims of priest-craft and another race of 
 human beings was annihilated under similar circumstances. The 
 
138 Modernism 
 
 people who settled our own country came from the British Isles 
 and other parts of Europe to an uncultivated wilderness where 
 they expected to gain a living by the cultivation of the soil. The 
 time finally came when it was necessary to fight for their freedom 
 against the King of England who claimed to rule the country 
 by divine right, declaring that all just government should be 
 derived from the consent of the governed. Being victorious 
 in their fight for liberty, they made this maxim the cornerstone 
 of their government, and most of the officers who were selected 
 to execute the laws tyvere elected by the voice or vote of the 
 people. 
 
 Having lived a hundred and twenty-six years through wars 
 and peace, during which the people have reaped the benefit de- 
 rived from discoveries in the arts and sciences, which have 
 broadened the vision of man by obtaining a truthful knowledge 
 of his own history and that of the earth, and the unlimited extent 
 of the stellar universe. The hard and continuous toil by poorly 
 fed men and women, is gradually disappearing. Many things 
 that were once the luxuries of the rich are now common to the 
 families of the mechanic and expert laborer. Night has been 
 turned into day through the use of electricity. Cars propelled 
 up steep grades by its application. Mountains and the streets 
 in large cities tunneled, also broad rivers tunneled, thus the 
 means of travel and transportation have increased to meet every 
 demand of the public. Through the application of steam and 
 electricity on railroad and telegraph lines space has been prac- 
 tically annihilated. You can sit in your own room or office 
 and converse with your friends who are many miles away. 
 The wood chopper in his cabin on the prairie a hundred miles 
 from any other habitation, through the horn of his phonograph 
 may hear distinctly the solos of the great singers, the music 
 of marching bands, and the humorous dialogues of actors on the 
 stage. The art of healing and the use of medicine have won- 
 derfully advanced, and surgery has become a science in the 
 hands of many doctors. These are only a few of the miracles 
 that common laymen have produced for the benefit of man, 
 while the priest has shut the door on improvement in his super- 
 stition. A great educator, the president of one of the most 
 honored colleges in the world, on delivering his farewell 
 address to the thousands of students who spent some of their 
 
Man and the Earth 139 
 
 time in the college over which he presided, believing that his 
 useful life as an educator could not be fittingly closed without 
 imparting to the great army that had loved to hear his voice, 
 the wisdom that experience and knowledge had made him the 
 interpreter of; knowing that all the gods that had been wor- 
 shipped for thousands of years, were priest-made gods, as were 
 the religious cults that sustained them; and seeing about him 
 the wonderful miracles produced through the arts and sciences 
 by laymen, he prophesied that all these priest-made gods and 
 religions would be swept away. That the superstition, by which 
 the conspirators against the happiness of mankind held the multi- 
 tude in mental slavery would be destroyed. That the new God 
 and the new religion, would be the hand-maids of the arts and 
 sciences in eradicating evil, disseminating truth, and in the pro- 
 motion of all work tending to make the world a fitting habita- 
 tion for man. For the fulfillment of the prophesy of President 
 Eliot, let us pray. 
 
 In all of the Protestant denominations there are preachers 
 who are very liberal, and some of them practically independent. 
 In the Universalist denomination, the liberals are in the 
 majority. In the Unitarian denomination, there are preachers 
 who are preaching the new gospel at the present time, and the 
 preachers of independent congregations have been preaching the 
 new gospel for several years. 
 
ALPHA AND OMEGA 
 
 An age before the brow of man 
 
 Was bound by priestcraft's snare, 
 The moon revealed the natural plan 
 
 Of wisdom and of care. 
 When freezing wind the burning sun 
 
 Subdued, the glowing light 
 Man's praise and worship won 
 
 As God of life and might. 
 
 Aurora bright at night and morn 
 
 Deceptive fires reveal, 
 The infant mind the fires adorn 
 
 With potency not real. 
 These were the gods that he could see 
 
 Most useful to his life, 
 And looking up he learned to be 
 
 Above the brutal strife. 
 
 Then priestcraft led the simple clods 
 
 From wisdom's path for pelf, 
 Enslaved the mind to mimic gods 
 
 As useless as himself. 
 But soon the power that taught the child 
 
 Of nature to adore, 
 Must break the charm that blinds mankind 
 
 And priestcraft rule no more. 
 
 140 
 
NOTES 
 
 A great part of what this book contains was published in magazines 
 from lectures delivered by the writer, from twenty-five up to ten years ago. 
 
 OUR SCHOOL LAWS ARE NOT PERFECT 
 
 Our common school system should provide that children with the con- 
 sent of their parents should be permitted to give up school attendance 
 when they can read, write and practice the four cardinal rules of 
 arithmetic. This is as much school education as one of our greatest 
 presidents secured. 
 
 IS ETHER COLD? 
 
 The ice and snow on mountain tops can be accounted for by the con- 
 tinual waves of cold carried from the ice and snow at the north and 
 south poles, without supposing that the ether which permeates all space 
 is cold which may be of a negative quality. 
 
 CHURCH REVENUE 
 
 The Roman Catholic Church collects millions of dollars every year 
 on the claim that it can remit the punishment due to sin and crime. 
 As thriving a business is done in indulgences to-day in Spain as when 
 Luther burned the Pope's bull. The government of Spain and the Spanish 
 Church are still in the dark age. 
 
 ORIENTAL AND HEATHEN HONESTY 
 
 The American author of "Round the World to Christian Missions," 
 says, "Ashamed as I am to acknowledge it as a citizen, of a nominally 
 Christian country it is a fact that during a year and three-quarters all 
 over Asia, I never lost a dollar's worth of goods; but the stealings 
 out of my baggage in Europe and Great Britain in less than a year 
 amounted to several hundred dollars worth of goods." 
 
 CONFESSION 
 
 As there is nothing in the gospels to prove that Jesus prohibited women 
 from teaching and preaching, there is no positive reason why women 
 should not be eligible, at least to the office of confessor. Outside of 
 the Catholic Church the idea of girls and women confessing to men 
 is abhorrent. 
 
 141 
 
142 Modernism 
 
 THE CARBON COMET 
 
 As nothing has been said about the comet that produced the carboni- 
 ferous age we will make a few suggestions about it. It is not to be 
 supposed that the tail of a comet a great distance from its head would 
 have much influence; but if the head of a comet containing a large 
 amount of carbon dioxide was less than a million miles from the earth 
 moving in the same direction while the tail was sweeping around the 
 earth the earth's attraction would suck all the carbon dioxide out of 
 the comet. The great disturbance which this would cause in our at- 
 mosphere and the interior of the earth would cause all the volcanoes on 
 the earth to belch out immeasurable volumes of carbon dioxide all over 
 the earth. When the disturbance ceased it would take a long time for 
 the earth to digest this gas, and when the atmosphere had become clear 
 again, the earth would have passed through just such a condition as 
 geology shows exists in the carboniferous strata. 
 
 THE FOUR RACES AND THEIR WANDERINGS 
 
 It should not be necessary to remind the reader that the wanderings 
 of the primitive races described in this book are not all drawn from 
 historical accounts, but that the gibbon, orang, chimpanzee and gorilla, 
 stand at the base of four distinct races of the human family there is 
 much more evidence than has ever been published in any book, is a fact. 
 
 The sun is the great electric battery which sends a continual stream 
 of imperceptible substance throughout its celestial domain to all the 
 material bodies that surround it, keeping them in motion and at essential 
 distances from each other. Each of the planets also performs similar 
 functions in minor degrees. Newton's laws and forces may be applied 
 with success within certain limits, but they cannot account for every 
 phenomenon that can be observed by the naked eye. As the twin 
 brother of astronomy is geology, can it be truly said that the great 
 masters of this science have proved beyond any possible cause for dis- 
 pute, that the phenomena or causes which acted in producing the car- 
 boniferous age or strata, are positively known? I have suggested that 
 it was caused by a large quantity of carbon gas which had been gathered 
 by a comet from unknown sources in the development of its so-called 
 tail and deposited on the earth, at a time that a large part of the earth 
 was covered with a shallow bed of water. Also at another period when 
 man had begun to take notice of natural objects, another comet collided 
 with the moon on the side that has ever since been presented to the 
 earth, its tail first circled the north pole, but immediately swung around 
 to the south sweeping it like a broom. The atmosphere of the tail 
 connecting with the atmosphere of the moon and earth together, formed 
 a funnel through which all the water on the moon was carried to the 
 earth charged with the chlorine gas of which the comet's tail was 
 composed. Prior to this event there had been a larger amount of lime 
 than of salt in our ocean. The comet hung to the moon as long as 
 
Notes 143 
 
 its orbit and the earth's or moon's orbit ran together; when they sep- 
 arated the comet continued on its regular course, or was scattered through 
 space as meteoric matter. On account of the then geographical condi- 
 tion of the earth, the extra quantity of salt water coming to it, pro- 
 duced the glacial epoch. It might be the extra saltness of the moon's 
 water. 
 
 When some geographical changes had been worked out through the 
 action of water and the influence of the sun, the glacial formation 
 gradually disappeared. The side of the moon facing the earth having 
 been burned almost to the condition or substance of coke, became much 
 lighter in weight than the opposite side causing that side to remain 
 unseen to us. Or if the greater quantity of water on the moon's surface 
 had been on this side, it may be that the natural affinity of this side 
 for the water that was taken from it causes this side of the moon to 
 continually face the earth. This latter is not a very scientific explana- 
 tion, but the word affinity contains an idea, which a more scientific 
 explanation would need, a more elaborate statement than a brief footnote 
 calls for. 
 
 THE JEWISH LEGEND AS RELATED BY SILAS THE MONK 
 
 To the original copy very little has been added and considerable has 
 been left out for the sake of brevity. The first part of the. Revelation 
 of John was written in the early part of the second century and the 
 second part during or after the last Jewish revolt under the approval 
 of the acting high priest, the Rabbi Akiba, and under the command of 
 Simon Bar Cochebas, who the writer ambiguously refers to as Anti- 
 Christ. Less space is also given to the tour of Cepheus and his com- 
 panions, for although they were well received in some places, yet in 
 others particularly in Judea, they were sometimes driven out of towns 
 where the pharisees were largely predominant, and stoned, some of them 
 beaten by mobs. They were frequently driven out of synagogues when 
 they tried to speak in these houses. In the communities where any 
 number of the Essenes joined them these communities were organized 
 by them and those who were members divided their substance so that 
 the whole community lived as one family. Outside of these communities 
 they lived as other people only that the poor were never allowed to 
 suffer want of food or clothing, which was supplied by those who could 
 spare some part of their usual income. Silas the monk was a boy 
 living in Jerusalem when the war broke out and escaped from the 
 city nearly at the end of the war almost starved to death, and joined 
 the Christians at Alexandria on the first tour of Cepheus and his com- 
 panions and shortly after went to Rome where he heard the story from 
 James who had been a friend and companion of John the Presbyter 
 from early boyhood. The book from which the legend was taken con- 
 tained about one hundred and fifty pages. The first part was taken 
 up with a history of the Jews from the time of Esther. 
 
144 Modernism 
 
 The preface to the history stated that most of the country lying west 
 of the river Jordan and the salty sea, was formerly called Israel the 
 country name of the planet Saturn, and that the Jews take their name 
 from the country of Judea, that there had been no written history of 
 the Jews until those who were sent to colonize the country by the King 
 of Persia had written it, many of whom had been taken prisoners of 
 war by the King of Babylon. This history took up more than half 
 of the book; the remainder of the book was taken up with Jewish legends 
 one of which is the story of Silas the Monk, which remained in manu- 
 script form the second until the sixteenth century when it was printed 
 in Hebrew, the same as the manuscript by a Jewish printer employed in 
 one of the printing establishments of Germany. The number of books he 
 printed was small and there never has been a second edition, as the 
 receivers of the books were liberal Jews who had been well educated 
 and never allowed a copy to go for one hour out of their hands until 
 they found proper persons near the end of their days to present them 
 to or will them to. 
 
 PERSECUTIONS 
 
 Those who have read the writings of the early fathers of the church, 
 on an honest examination of some parts of some of these writings 
 where special persecution of Christians is intimated, and have not found 
 in the writings of more reliable and better qualified Christian fathers 
 that these special persecutions of the Christians, except in local and 
 very mild degree are untrustworthy, have either missed the o.^ject 
 they sought or have made mountains out of mole hills. In the earliest 
 age of the church the Christians were confounded with the Jews whom 
 the Romans through a long experience had found it impossible to treat 
 as they had treated other people, consequently finding it necessary to 
 deal harshly with them, they did not discriminate between what might 
 be called orthodox and unorthodox Jews, as the early Christians were 
 regarded as merely a Jewish sect. But in the time of Diocletian it was 
 otherwise. At that time the Church had come under the dominion of 
 Paul. Vast hordes of men were flocking to Africa as hermits, solitaires 
 and beggars, and monasteries were spreading over Europe wherever 
 any number of Christians existed. All those performing religious func- 
 tions, men and women, or acting under Christian frenzy were celibates. 
 As the constant wars of the Romans necessitated a continued call for 
 able-bodied men, this drawing from the marriage state a large number 
 of men and women was looked upon as a national evil. This is one 
 of the causes assigned for the edict of Diocletian against the Christians 
 and Manicheans. There may have been others, but they are not in 
 evidence. The most singular thing about it is recorded in the lives of 
 the saints, where the statement is made that the holy martyrs were 
 called upon to worship some of the Roman gods and if they refused 
 to do so they were imprisoned and if they continued true to the faith 
 they had received, they were executed and tortured. 
 
Notes 145 
 
 Diocletian was a sun worshipper. At that time their system of worship 
 was nearly the same, if not exactly so, as that of the Mithraists. There 
 was a very large number of priests and bishops for a small number 
 of Christians and Manicheans, and it was against these that the edict 
 was directed. The officers of the law were directed to arrest any of 
 these that any proof could be obtained against. Every one arrested 
 had an examination before a magistrate, and if he gave up his copy 
 of the scriptures and all other religious possession he was discharged. 
 He was not called upon to worship Diocletian's or any other person's 
 god. He was merely advised not to perform the functions of a priest 
 or bishop again under severer penalty, but I have not found where any 
 except bishops were arrested. In the districts of which the city of 
 Milan was the magisterial seat, two bishops had courted martyrdom and 
 received that honor. 
 
 Diocletian was a brave soldier and a distinguished general. It is said 
 that it was one of his colleagues that suggested or insisted on the edict 
 against the Christians, but he soon got ashamed of it and resigned his 
 position as emperor and retired to private life, when the persecution 
 immediately ceased, but the law was not repealed. After the victory 
 of Constantine, about twelve years later, at Milvian Bridge which made 
 him emperor of the west, he called Licinius, the emperor of the east 
 to a conference where they both signed a decree in the city of Milan 
 in 313, restoring all forfeited religious and civil rights and privileges 
 to Christians. It seems by the statement of this decree that the Chris- 
 tians had at some time forfeited their civil and religous rights, but a 
 footnote cannot be used as a book. 
 
 CONSTANTINE 
 
 Constantine as a soldier had grown up under the eye of Diocletian, 
 being sent to his court as a hostage when his father received com- 
 mand of the Roman army of Gaul, Spain, Germany and England, or 
 possibly only a part of this territory, at first. Educated at this court 
 and when he was old enough he was appointed to a minor position, 
 but on account of the ability he displayed in every position he was 
 placed, he rose to a position in the army when he was only twenty-two 
 years of age equivalent to that of a major-general in our army. The 
 manner in which he was rewarded for his military achievements by 
 Diocletian certainly caused him to regard his commander and emperor 
 with no small amount of affection, and as a member of his court 
 family Diocletian was the guardian of the young man, and with 
 Diocletian he attended divine services, and when Diocletian retired to 
 private life he continued to practice the same religion when under the 
 command of another general. But when he returned to his father and 
 mother after many years' absence he understood for the first time what 
 the edict of Diocletian meant. When it was issued it is likely that 
 he regarded it as being just, as we do not know on what grounds the 
 
146 Modernism 
 
 Christians had been deprived of the ordinary rights and privileges of 
 other people in the empire, but in conversation with his father he under- 
 stood that the practice of the religion of his parents was a crime in the 
 eye of the law; so to efface that reproach under which his relatives and 
 their nearest friends rested not that he believed in their religion when 
 he became emperor of the west, he and his colleague, Licinius, signed 
 the edict repealing all the laws that had been recorded against the Chris- 
 tians. Nearly all writers except Catholics, seem to regard this act of 
 Constantine as one of pure policy, as if a small minority of the people, 
 without social standing, education or wealth, were pandered to, with 
 no acknowledgment of the value of the public sentiment of the vast 
 majority of the common people, all the wealth of the pagans, the force 
 of the highly educated class and all the nobility were to be regarded 
 as of no consequence. But although Constantine patronized the religion 
 of his parents and his Catholic relatives took charge of the religious 
 affairs of his court, still he himself was no Christian, and was not 
 baptized until the end of his life approached, and that act was performed 
 by an Arian bishop. His edict making Sunday a legal holiday shows 
 that he was at that time a sun worshipper. Constantine was a great 
 politician and when he signed the decree of 313 he had something up 
 his sleeve that would counteract that impolitic act, but it had been given 
 out before the signing of the repeal to soften the minds of the pagans. 
 In fact immediately after the battle of Milvian Bridge in conversation 
 with one of the noted interpreters of dreams, of which Rome had a 
 small army he said he had a vision or dream on the night before the battle 
 in which he saw a cross on the clouds and above it was displayed in 
 large letters, " By this Conquer." Although there was a number of 
 men who were students of literature in the empire who took no stock 
 in the value of anything connected with religion, yet this class was 
 very small as there were not many who did not place more or less 
 reliance on dreams and providential incidents. The account of this dream 
 of Constantine's spread rapidly, and knowing how the Christian religion 
 was despised by the educated pagans and the leaders of all the cults, 
 he had to give some reason for his patronage of it. None of them 
 would condemn him for performing an act which they thought sprang 
 from an honest motive. And as much reliance was placed on important 
 dreams and an expert interpretation of them, his pretended vision of 
 the cross could be used as an excuse for the act of repeal, and patronage 
 of the Christian religion. These acts were regarded as his interpreta- 
 tion of the vision. His acts for a long time were only personal favors 
 that did not disturb any of the advantages the pagans had gained by 
 long years of special privileges and favors from the emperors and the 
 people. And although it cannot be observed that in laying the founda- 
 tion of a new era, it was of any spiritual advantage to Christianity, yet 
 from a political standpoint his endorsement of it was of incalculable 
 importance. 
 
Notes 147 
 
 In war and politics Constantine was the most singularly fortunate of 
 any man we have any record of. His single failing was rashness. His 
 wise discernment and quick decision in war and politics saved him much 
 trouble and the loss of lives, but the same quickness of decision in his 
 domestic affairs, materially shortened the life of imperial Rome. The 
 son of his first wife, Crispus, even from his boyhood displayed the 
 possession of military ingenuity and valor whenever he took part in 
 his father's campaigns, and gave promise of being the one man who 
 could take his father's place and keep the vast domain under one head, 
 but through the jealousy of his stepmother who had three sons, she 
 wished might be preferred before her stepson through that one failing 
 of rashness of decision in domestic affairs, where a long head always 
 fares best, Crispus fell a victim, and the empire was divided between 
 the three sons of the foolish woman, which sealed the fate of the 
 empire; for after Constantine, Rome never produced an emperor who 
 was both a soldier and a statesman. In the Roman law the penalty was 
 death for a married man and woman to have criminal connection. And 
 the same penalty for the violation of a free woman. In the philosophy 
 of Epictetus these cases were modified, and divorce could be granted 
 against the proved criminal, but mercy should be shown to the guilty. 
 As the writers of the gospels were students of Epictetus, Jesus exempli- 
 fies the philosophy of Epictetus, in the case of the woman charged 
 with adultery. 
 
 Before closing with Constantine, Diocletian and persecution, I will call 
 attention to a meeting of Catholic bishops in 305 immediately after the 
 resignation of Diocletian, twelve in number. It was called at Cirta 
 for the ordination of a bishop for that town by Secundus Primate of 
 Numedia, the place where Diocletian was installed emperor. When the 
 meeting opened Secundus began an inquiry into the conduct of the 
 assembled bishops during the persecution. One by one he accused his 
 colleagues of having saved their lives by delivering to the pagan officers 
 the scriptures and other sacred belongings. They all admitted the crime 
 until he came to the last bishop a half-savage named Perpurius. " You 
 are accused of murdering your two nephews," said Secundus. "Yes, I 
 did kill them and I will kill any one who attempts to upset me," 
 answered Perpurius, and added, that " if Secundus tried to bully him 
 as he did the others " he would inform the meeting of the way Secundus 
 had saved his own life during the persecution. Secundus said " he would 
 not try to explain his conduct to this meeting, that he would leave that 
 matter to God." The bishops who had saved their lives in this way 
 and other ways were called "Traditors." You can form your own 
 opinion about the persecution and also as to the character of some who 
 had been deemed worthy of being bishops. 
 
 From Constantine's dream on the night before the battle of Milvian 
 Bridge, in time the story grew like that of the three crows, from a 
 dream or vision to an unnatural phenomenon occurring at noon day and 
 observed by his whole army. And the reliable ? Eusebius tells us that 
 
148 - Modernism 
 
 the emperor told it to him many years after the occurrence. Few if 
 any historians seem to comprehend the political significance of that vision 
 or dream. Not knowing until fully successful that he would be the 
 emperor of the west and Pontifex Maximus, it is not likely that any 
 plan had been fixed in his mind as to what excuse he would give for 
 repealing the laws against the Christians. But when he was successful 
 the value of a dream or vision, as such things were called, it is likely 
 struck him as being of the greatest value. Of course it was a fake, 
 but it was the most valuable excuse he could offer to defend his political 
 reputation against the adverse sentiment of the power of the wealth, 
 intellect, nobility and the vast majority of the Roman people. The use 
 of the fake story for the purpose of unfurling the banner of the Sacred 
 Labarum did not enter his mind at first, as no such banner was exhibited 
 to the army until ten years later in his war on Licinius. Through the 
 agency of astrologers and all classes of fortune tellers his dream had 
 been carried to the ends of the empire, and at this late day had grown 
 to the phenomenon in the heavens at midday in the presence of his 
 whole army with this addition he may have thought that the exhibition 
 of the so-called Sacred Labarum or banner of the cross might work 
 to his advantage. 
 
 THE HELIOCENTRIC THEORY 
 
 The book of Copernicus was dedicated to Pope Paul III. I am 
 prejudiced against the name. It is not easy to be entirely impartial 
 or do exact justice to any priest of that name, especially when he selects 
 it for himself. He was appointed a cardinal in 1493, by Pope Alexander 
 VI, that exemplar of virtues and admirer of virginity, on account of 
 his admiration for Giula, the beautiful sister of Paul. This incident 
 caused Paul to be nicknamed Cardinal Petticoat. He was elected Pope 
 in 1534. At that time the phrase modernism was in the air and in the 
 selection of his cabinet, to please both parties he selected what he thought 
 was an equal number of progressionists and reactionaries, but he made 
 a mistake as the reactionists got control and marked out the policy that 
 was pursued. In 1540 he instituted the order of Jesuits and two years 
 later he established the Roman Inquisition. Was he not a fine man 
 for Copernicus to dedicate his book to? Some of the men who have 
 been selected to write article for encyclopedias were as unfit for the 
 work they were selected to perform, as an ass would be to play the 
 part of an intelligent dog. According to one of the most popular of 
 these the writers who publicly sustained the theory of Copernicus were 
 a few letter writers, and no mention is made of the man who delivered 
 lectures in many of the most populous cities of Europe, sustaining and 
 explaining the theory and who had debated the subject for three days 
 at Oxford with several opponents who he claims were very narrow 
 minded and knew little on the subject they tried to talk about. This 
 was Giordano Bruno. 
 
Notes 149 
 
 He also wrote a pamphlet on the tides in connection with the theory 
 in which he says that the moon on her journey through the heavens 
 attracts and draws the water of the seas after her. As well as lecturing 
 on the Copernican theory, he wrote a book which was published in 
 Paris on the same subject with title of Evening Conversations. Bruno's 
 published works were scattered through England, France, Germany and 
 Italy and when he was delivered to the officers of the Inquisition at 
 Rome, copies of these works were gathered by his enemies and brought 
 to Rome for the inspection of his murderers. What he suffered during 
 the seven years he was incarcerated in a dungeon before he was burned 
 at the stake in the city of Rome, no one will ever know. It now became 
 the duty of every good Catholic to destroy his books as he had been excom- 
 municated and his works condemned. But the books were not all burned. 
 The Jesuits knew enough to keep copies of them, and when the proper time 
 came to lay claim to some of his discoveries as did their College of Coimbra 
 claim on their work on the tides. How different was the life of Bruno 
 from that of Galileo. Galileo had through his published works and his 
 teaching as a professor of science amassed wealth. He was received 
 in the palaces of noblemen, lay and cleric as more than an equal, and 
 his popularity spread throughout Europe as the greatest astronomer that 
 ever lived, but in time he forgot the age he was living in and the place 
 where he was living. Prompted by an irrepressible desire to be pub- 
 licly acclaimed the greatest man the world had ever produced in the 
 realm of science he wrote a book which he thought would perform 
 that wonderful service and had it published without the sanction of 
 the inquisitors which put an end to his honorable career. The book 
 elaborated his idea on the flux and reflux of the tides, which he held 
 demonstrated the heliocentric theory and which is not worth the paper 
 it is printed on. It is in dialogue form. The dialogue is between three 
 men, two learned and one a dogmatic and peripatetic simpleton, in which 
 he caricatured the Pope putting words into his mouth which he had 
 used in a conversation with Galileo in his own palace. The caricature 
 and sarcasm were so palpable that the Pope and all his friends did 
 not have to look through a microscope to detect it. Under the circum- 
 stances the Pope would have been a pattern of exalted patience, humility 
 and charity to forgive and forget such an inexcusable act. Pope Urban 
 did not happen to be such a pattern, so secured a priest to call the 
 attention of the Inquisition to Galileo's works. It condemned him as 
 the writer and the heliocentric theory as heresy, but ordered no further 
 punishment than that he must recite the seven penitential psalms once 
 a week for three years, after he had reprobated, cursed and retracted all 
 that he had written on that subject. It was pretty hard on the old 
 man. But even under that great shadow he felt some days that life 
 was worth what he paid for it. 
 
 Although the voyage of Magellan had demonstrated the rotundity of 
 the earth, and did more to inspire philosophers in accepting what was 
 called at the time the Pythagorean theory than anything else that had 
 
1 50 Modernism 
 
 been discovered or suggested, still there was a long fight before it 
 became a settled question or problem. The man who ended the strife, 
 Sir Isaac Newton, now became the great scientific philosopher of the 
 time. One of the best friends Galileo had in Rome during the time 
 he was trying to convince the Pope and his friends that the scriptures 
 endorse the heliocentric theory, was Cardinal Bellarmine, a Jesuit. 
 Giving his views to the cardinal on this subject, the cardinal advised 
 him to leave such questions to the theologians as that was their proper 
 function. " When a demonstration shall be found to establish the earth's 
 motion, it will be proper then to interpret the sacred scriptures other- 
 wise than they have been hitherto in those passages where mention is 
 made of the stability of the earth and the movement of the heavens." 
 Under this idea of interpreting the scriptures the Catholic Church can 
 make itself solid with all scientific discoveries. 
 
 WORSHIP OF AUGUSTUS CESAR 
 
 A brief but good account of the Worship of Augustus Caesar will be 
 found in Alexander Del Mar's work under that title, from which quota- 
 tions have been frequently made by the writer. 
 
 WHY IS MAN HAIRLESS? 
 
 No scientist has ever been able to explain why man is hairless. Yet 
 nothing is more simple and natural than the explanation that our most 
 primitve ancestors destroyed the power of growing hair on their bodies 
 by bathing in a lime water sea. Of course the sea had some salt in 
 it, but the main mineral substance was lime. The two circular seas 
 surrounding the poles were probably much more salt than lime. 
 
 KNOWLEDGE 
 
 It is a positive fact, that an unschooled child knows as much about 
 God, the hereafter, the soul, and other supposed positively known matters 
 relating to man's duty to God, as the most intellectual man that has 
 ever lived, or the most reverend and popular person on earth, either 
 on account of one person believing in his knowledge or three hundred 
 million believing that he possesses a special knowledge in these matters. 
 The universe presents itself to the mind of a rational being as the living 
 demonstration of intelligence. And as man in a very small degree 
 seems to possess a part of that intelligence, he cannot reasonably deny 
 its existence in the world. As Lucretius the Roman poet says, " Nothing 
 comes from nothing," therefore it would be nonsensical to say that the 
 power of our intellect comes from nothing. 
 
 ELECTION OF BISHOPS 
 
 The fights of factions at ward caucuses some years ago were humorous 
 affairs when looking from the outside, and sometimes bad and serious 
 
Notes i 151 
 
 affairs, but they were nothing to compare to the election of Christian 
 bishops in wealthy and important districts. When Damasus was elected 
 bishop of Rome 384, A. D. 137 dead bodies were found on the floor 
 of the Libenan Basilica, the Church of St. Maria Maggiora, the morn- 
 ing after the election. 
 
 THE PARACLETE 
 
 To fulfill the prophecy in the gospel that the Paraclete would come 
 to enlighten the Christians, it came in the person of Montanus in the 
 latter part of the second century. As permanent organs of the Paraclete 
 only three persons were recognized (a trinity) Montanus, Prisca and 
 Maximilla. They fixed a place for the saints to gather to meet the Lord 
 when he would descend on a cloud, in a short time. Montanus appeared 
 at Ardaban in Phrygia bringing revelations of the spirit. The woman 
 Maximilla, was much greater than Montanus as an exhibitor of the 
 spiritual power within her. She held open discussions with several bishops 
 of the church and worsted them all. When intense opposition was 
 brought against her she cried out " I am pursued like a wolf." Paul's 
 classes among his followers, such as prophets, and tongues, etc., gave 
 rise to lots of fanatical nonsense and this spiritual exhibition was one 
 of them. When the time approached for the coming of the Lord, Maxi- 
 milla assured her followers and enemies that she would live to see the 
 end. "After me there will come no other prophets but the end." Ter- 
 tullian, the man who created Christian literature, living at Carthage in 
 Africa, was struck with the fanciful exploits of these visionaries and 
 took so strong a stand in their favor that he died outside of the church 
 in whose defence he had spent his life with all the intense vigor of 
 a born fighter. 
 
 In stating that the ancient sun worshippers made wreaths of their 
 votive offerings to the sun, I might mention that this was practiced as 
 late if not later than Homer's time. These wreaths were hung on a 
 sacred pole or fane In Homer's Iliad the priest Chryseis who has tried to 
 secure his daughter's return to him, after being insulted by the king 
 prays for vengeance on the Greeks. He calls on his god, the sun thus: 
 " Thou source of light ! whom Tenedoes adores and whose bright pres- 
 ence gilds thy Chryseis shores if e'er with wreaths I hung thy sacred 
 fane." 
 
 SACK OF ROME 
 
 When the pagan temples were closed by the edict of the emperor, 
 the Christians enjoyed the triumph of laughing at the weakness of the 
 pagan gods as they could not save their temples. They were asked by 
 the Christians, " Where is the thunder of your Jove now ? " But in 
 410, after the Goths had sacked the city of Rome and spread fire and 
 desolation through the empire their attention was called to warnings of 
 the great pagan orator, Symmachus, now that the cry was reverberating 
 through every part of the empire, that Christianity was the cause. That 
 disaster entered the empire with Christianity, and the nation was smitten 
 
152 Modernism 
 
 for its infidelity. St. Augustine was called on to refute this charge, but 
 as he was giving all his spare time to writing the City of God, he 
 turned the task over to the young Spanish priest Orosius. He asked 
 him to write a short history of the world which would show by the 
 plain record of events briefly stated, the futility of the charge that 
 disaster only entered the Roman world with Christianity. Orosius 
 wrote his essay, but it was useless to Augustine or any one else as 
 a refutation of the charge brought against Christianity by the pagans. 
 The pagan pontiffs declared that the empire had been smitten for its 
 infidelity, and the thunder of Jove was seen in the Sack of the city of 
 Rome and the desolation worked by the Goths. The pagan epithet of 
 infidel applied to the Christians has always been used by the priests of 
 an older religion against those who cease to be their followers. 
 
 TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS 
 
 The theory of Pythagoras about the transmigration of souls was the 
 Egyptian theory, that is, the bodily life of the soul is an imprisonment 
 for sins that were committed in a former existence. After death the 
 soul reaped what it had sown in the present life. The reward of the 
 just was to enter at death the world of perfect order and harmony where 
 one will know all things as they are, not as they seem, in the highland 
 regions of the universe, while the great criminals will be sent to Tartarus, 
 the deepest and darkest regions of the world. The belief that the dying 
 person's mind was refreshed with the memory of experiences in his 
 former existence, gave him the power of prophecy and divine benediction. 
 The custom of dying persons bestowing or prophesying happiness, wealth, 
 and length of days, and bestowing a divine blessing on his children, and 
 cursing those whom he did not like, are connected with the transmi- 
 gration of souls' doctrine as taught by Pythagoras and others. There 
 are many explanations as to what originally suggested the doctrine. 
 The base of course was natural. A man died, was buried five or six 
 inches under ground, grass grew on his grave, an ox ate the grass, a 
 tiger killed the ox and ate it. Now this is far enough. First the 
 man's soul went into the grass, then into the ox and finally into the 
 tiger. From this suggestion of the old seer who observed what has been 
 remarked the doctrine grew by constant improvements. 
 
 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 
 
 The editor of the English translation of De Ligney's Life of Christ 
 in a footnote referring to Gamaliel's discourse as stated in the Acts of 
 the Apostles, perpetrates the following Irish bull: 
 
 "Josephus in the twentieth book of his Antiquities speaks of one 
 Teodus, who gave himself out for a prophet, and against him Caspus 
 Fadus, the governor of Judea, sent out his troop, who killed him and 
 with him several of his followers, the rest being irretrievably dispersed. 
 This happened according to him, in the fourth year of the reign of 
 Claudius. This is what puzzles the interpreters, because that period was 
 
Notes 153 
 
 many years later than the discourse of Gamaliel, and there is no proba- 
 bility that Josephus could be mistaken forty years in fixing the date 
 of a public event which he said occurred in his own time. Let this 
 be as it may, it is still certain first that Gamaliel quoted this fact on the 
 present occasion, second, that he did so before men who were as well 
 informed as himself; third that these men, so far from contradicting 
 were convinced by his words; consequently this fact can no longer be 
 doubted. When there is positive evidence of any fact no other objections 
 can be reasonably admitted than those which directly bear upon the proof. 
 This principle is certain, and it alone is quite enough to annihilate almost 
 all objections brought against religion." 
 
 The logic displayed in the above argument to prove how it was pos- 
 sible for Gamaliel to refer to an event that did not occur until 40 years 
 after his time, has no comparison in the world of letters outside of 
 the speech of Dogberry in the Shakespeare play. 
 
 CHANGING THE CALENDAR 
 
 After everything that was essential was accomplished, the Christians 
 continued to observe the festivals that had been established during the 
 prevalence of sun, moon, stars and fire worship. Under sun worship, 
 the sun was crossified when it crossed the equinoctial line, and on the 
 third day after that event, the sun and earth was resurrected from the 
 death of winter and ascended up into the summer heaven. When that 
 system of religion was changed and mythical persons were made to 
 personify the sun, the history of the sun in its course through the 
 heavens was applied to the personified person, and the ritual that had 
 been established by the sun worshippers was continued. All the old 
 festivals that were celebrated throughout the world had become a part 
 of the religious life of nations. The Christians as well as all other 
 people observed these festivals. In the early part of the fifth century 
 the pagans claimed that the Christians were still pagans as they observed 
 all the festivals of the pagan gods. For the purpose of trying to break 
 up the religious ceremonies and customs connected with the celebration 
 of these festivals, the church adopted a movable calendar so that the 
 crucifixion, resurrection, ascension and other festivals in honor of Jesus 
 and Mary should not be observed on the days observed by the old 
 festivals, but the Christians still persevered in observing the old festi- 
 vals. The bishops seeing that they could not change this condition of 
 things, adopted a new plan. Using their phrase, they " dedicated to 
 the honor and glory of God everything valuable in the older religious 
 systems." They now arranged to make many of these festival days 
 commemorations of the birth or death of certain saints. By the adop- 
 tion of the Christian religion by Constantine, a Christian monarch 
 became the ruler of a large part of Asia, Africa and all Europe except 
 Scotland and Ireland. Although Scotland had not been overrun by the 
 Roman army, by its close proximity to England and as it was not 
 separated by any sea, it gradually and eventually adopted many of the 
 civilizing laws of the Romans. When Ambrose compelled the Roman 
 
154 Modernism 
 
 Senate to acknowledge the supremacy of the church in all things in 
 which the church was interested, the government became an instrument 
 for enforcing the edicts of the church. By this means the old festival 
 days were gradually broken up wherever the Roman army was stationed, 
 and the days fixed by the movable calendar for observing the cruci- 
 fixion, resurrection and ascension, were observed in the same manner 
 that these festivals had been celebrated in the old system, but not on 
 the same days. As the Roman army did not cross the Irish sea into 
 Ireland, the Roman army could not compel the Irish to adopt these 
 regulations of the church. 
 
 Under the religious system of the Druids which prevailed in Gaul, 
 England, Scotland and Ireland, the mythical personification of the sun 
 was called Hesus. According to their system the I4th of March was 
 the day on which Hesus was crucified and his resurrection occurred on 
 the I7th of the same month. As in all other countries that was the 
 great religious festival day of spring. Ireland had been converted by 
 the early missionaries, largely through their efforts to convert the petty 
 princes and chiefs of the people. After their conversion, whether it 
 was by force or through the example and moral influence of these 
 kings and princes, the people adopted the Christian religion. As these 
 kings did not have the power or did not care to meddle with the customs 
 of the people, the church authorities at Rome could not enforce its edicts 
 in Ireland as Ireland was not in the dominion of Rome. So the Chris- 
 tians of Ireland continued to celebrate the resurrection of Hesus on 
 the seventeenth of March, and the best the church authorities could do 
 in Ireland, about two hundred years after the death of St. Patrick was 
 to dedicate the day to St. Patrick. Therefore you may observe that the 
 Irish Catholics still celebrate the resurrection of Hesus, the god of the 
 Druids, under the name of St. Patrick. As they had no knowledge of 
 St. Patrick's birthday it was easy to do this. 
 
 CHRISTIAN AND SEMI-CHRISTIAN LITERATURE OF THE 
 SECOND CENTURY 
 
 Epistles and other religious tracts were written and in order that 
 they would have influence, the name of some prominent person was 
 attached to them, that the name would help to prove that the particular 
 doctrines that the writer was interested in, were the true doctrines. A 
 very large amount of the literature that was read in some of the early 
 churches, were pure invention or forgeries. Some idea of the number 
 of these gospels, epistles, and other kinds of Christian and semi-Christian 
 productions can be formed by reading the following, many of which 
 were read in the churches even after it was known that they were 
 spurious: The gospel of Matthias, the gospel of Peter the apostle, the 
 gospel of James, the gospel of Barnabas, the gospel of St. Thomas, 
 the gospel of Bartholomew, the gospel of Andrew, the gospel of Paul, 
 the gospel according to the Egyptians, the gospel according to the 
 Hebrews, the gospel of perfection, the gospel of Philip, another gospel 
 
Notes 155 
 
 of Matthew, the gospel of Judas Iscariot, the gospel of Basillides, the 
 gospel of Thaddeus, the first gospel of the infancy of Jesus Christ, the 
 gospel of the birth of Mary, the gospel of the Scythians, the gospel 
 of Titian, the gospel of Life, the gospel of Eve, the gospel of Incra- 
 tites, the gospel of Jude, the false gospel of Hesychius, the gospel pub- 
 lished by Lucianus, the gospel of Longinus, the gospel of Velentius, 
 the gospel according to the Nazarenes, the gospel of Nicodemus, the 
 gospel of Cerinthus, the gospel of truth, the gospel of Marcion, the 
 gospel of Apelles, the acts of Peter, the acts of Andrew, the acts of 
 Philip, the acts of Paul and Thecla, the acts of Paul, the acts of Peter 
 and Andrew, the acts of John, the acts of Mary, acts of the apostles 
 used by the Ebionites, the acts of the apostles by Leucius, the acts of 
 the apostles used by the Manicheans, the preaching of Paul, the preach- 
 ing of Peter, the doctrine of Peter, the acts of Philip, the acts of Thomas, 
 the acts of Barnabas, the Judgment of Peter, the Pastor or Shepherd, the 
 Foundation, the Treasure, the Children of Ada, the Centinetum of Christ, 
 the Book of Cepheus, the Pastor of Hermes, the Hymn Taught by Christ, 
 the Revelation of Paul, the Revelation of Peter, the Revelation of 
 Thomas, the Revelation of Stephen, the transitus of Mary, the Penitential 
 Acts of Addo, the Testament of Job, the Penitence of Jannes and Mam- 
 bres, the Praise of the Apostles, the Canons of the Apostles, the Reve- 
 lation of Moses, the Revelation of Bartholomew, the Revelation of Cer- 
 inthus, the Revelation of Esdres, the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, 
 the Sibyline Oracles, an Epistle of Christ to Peter and Paul, the Epistle 
 of Christ produced by the Manicheans, the Epistle of Themison, Epistles 
 of Paul to Seneca and Seneca to Paul, the Epistle of Barnabas, the 
 Epistle to the Magnesians, the Epistle of the Trallians to the Smyrneans, 
 the Epistle of Jesus Christ to Abgarus, King of Edessa, and of Abgarus 
 to Jesus Christ, and many others. There are over thirty acts alone, and 
 many unmentioned gospels and epistles. 
 
 In a book called " The Apocryphal New Testament," which can be 
 bought for a dollar, are the following: The gospel of the Birth of Mary, 
 the gospel of James or the Protevangelion, the gospel of the Infancy of 
 Jesus Christ, the epistles of Jesus Christ and King Abgarus of Edessa, 
 the gospel of Nicodemus, formerly called the acts of Pilate, the Apostles 
 Creed before it was interpolated, the Epistle of Paul to the Laodiceans, 
 the Epistles of Paul and Seneca, the acts of Paul and Thecla, the Epistle 
 of Clement to the Corinthians, the General Epistle of Barnabas, the 
 Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians, the Epistle of Ignatius to the 
 Magnesians, Epistle of Ignatius to the Trallians, Epistle of Ignatius to the 
 Romans, to the Smyrneans, to Polycarp, of Polycarp to the Philippians, 
 the Shepherd of Hermes, Letters of Herod and Pilate relating to Jesus. 
 
 MAN AND HIGHER APES BLOOD RELATIONS 
 
 I forgot to mention in the proper place that the blood of the higher 
 apes and man can be injected into the veins of each other without injury. 
 This is one of the strongest evidences of man's descent from the ape 
 familv. 
 
TITLES OF SEVERAL OF THE AUTHOR'S 
 PUBLISHED LECTURES 
 
 Delivered in Albany, Troy, Saratoga, Boston, 
 New York and other places 
 
 Poetry 
 
 Dreams 
 
 Past and Present 
 
 Taxation 
 
 Prison Reform 
 
 English Essayists 
 
 Adam and Eve 
 
 Thanksgiving 
 
 Elisee Reclus' Earth 
 
 Comets, Meteors and Nebula 
 
 Science versus Theology 
 
 Constructive Philosophy 
 
 Political Organization 
 
 Washington Centennial Anniversary 
 
 Jefferson Anniversary 
 
 Democracy 
 Protection and Reciprocity 
 
 Inspiration 
 Freedom of Worship 
 
 The Pope's Attitude to Republican Institutions 
 Single Tax and Socialism 
 
 Medievalism 
 Abraham Lincoln 
 
 Shakespeare 
 Albany Bi-Centennial Address 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY