teachings of Christ when he was on Earth, whither he went to show men what perfect life was and what overcoming sin meant, and how to attain that spiritual state that would fit them for those realms of light and love?

"He was almost indignant at once when I mentioned Christ's teachings, and said to me:

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'How can you mock me, even in Plutone's dark realm, as my thought was mocked on Earth, by telling me to look for light and truth in that mesh and snare and delusion of superstition which they called, on Earth, Christianity? Have I not had enough of its dogmas? How will those dogmas help me to become good, even if I could force myself to believe them? How will it change my desires to believe that there are three divine persons, separate and distinct, and yet one God? How does it make me love Christ to be told that he was God, and that it must be a part of Christianity to believe that he was God, when I read in Christ's own words that God was greater than he, and was distinct from himself, and that he was only obeying God and serving Him in what he did on earth, and that God sent him to earth and commanded him what to do, and gave him all the power he possessed in order that he might obey the will of the Father?' And my objector to Christianity said further:

"And this Christianity, which they told me Christ taught on earth, not only taught that Christ was God, but that God was so angry and wrathful towards the children of men that He in His wrath sacrificed himself in order to satisfy himself. Now tell me, how does it help me to love God, my Father, as I ought with all my life, to be taught that as a part of a plan to save just some of His children, it was necessary for God to kill God in order to satisfy God? And then that notwithstanding this "scheme of salvation," as they termed it, vast, vast, vast numbers of poor beings-many of whom sinned in ignorance-will be consigned by their heavenly Father to endless torments !

"Now suppose I believe all this, how would, and could it regenerate my will, transform my life, reform my character, and make me become in myself, as a free personal agent, pure and good?

“All such truth (?) I have long since done with! And yet you come now and ask me if I did not have Christianity on Earth to guide me to that sweet truth which would fit me for those blessed realms of light?'

“I replied to him: 'No, you mistake me. I did not point you to Christianity, so-called on Earth, I pointed you to Christ and his life and words on Earth. I pointed you to that beautiful true spirit of his life, which was the real safe interpretation of his words.'

"After saying this to him I gave to him to study the transfixed Psychic-Thought-Forms of Christ's discourse, but just now delivered by him in the sphere of the Temple, which Thought-Forms I have here to transmit to you all-wherein Christ teaches us so lucidly of that perfect life which he has patterned for us, and of that true way that leadeth up to that state of pure life and light, where the Father and the pure in heart abide.

"Now the trouble with my objector was that he had a conception of what he had been taught was Christianity, but he had no idea or conception of the true Christ. He had allowed this false conception to take the place of Christthe Reality-and having become dissatisfied with his conception he had cast it away;-but in so doing he imagined that he had done with Christ-when the truth was, he had no conception of Christ. He, who will study Christ's life and teaching, and will interpret his teaching by the spirit of his life, and not by the letter of the record, which is often parabolic and figurative and intended to apply to the then age and locality, will find that the Christianity believed in by a large part of the people of Earth has very little in it that bears the stamp and teaching of that Life and Personality, whose name it has assumed.

"How could a man, or a people, or a church, who really believed in Christ, be bigoted and intolerant and cruel? And yet look at the record that many believers in what they term Christianity have made on earth? Their history is gory with blood and black with infamy. Look at Christian (?) wars! Blackstone, who was one of our great legal authors on Earth, said: 'It may be justly observed that religious principles, which (when genuine and pure) have an evident tendency to make their professors better citizens as well as better men, have (when perverted and erroneous) been usually subversive of civil government, and been made both the cloak and the instrument of every pernicious design that can be harbored in the heart of man.'

"So the perversions of Christ's gentle and beautiful teachings have plunged humanity on earth into dungeons of superstition so foul with blood and filth that the choke-damp of some coal-mine there seems innocuous by comparison ;through these perversions, they nursed into bloody and deceitful deeds all that was most dark, wrathful, false, crafty and cruel; priest and tyrant eagerly combined to carry out the maxims of 'tooth and claw;' intolerant bigotry and persecution and fanaticism run wild, changed the 'cross of love into the guillotine' and 'rack' of cruelty; priestly censorship and domination strove with might and main to shackle and immure the mind and thought of the ages; sectarian strife and warring discord, like some demoniac simoom often swept Earth of beauty, peace and joy, and rent man's social life limb from limb; the pages of history are lighted up with the record of these libels on Christ's life and these perversions of his teachings, as by the murky glare, lurid and smoky, of infernal fires!

"These are not the fruits of Christ's life and love and truth, but show what men will do when they pervert truth, and in spite of Christ and his truth.

"On that dark, dismal picture as a background, I see in

relief but the more clearly what the life and teaching of Christ are.

"Yet those of us, who thought for ourselves and who studied Christ and relied on him and his teaching, and not on what others said and taught about him, did not throw away Christ and His truth, and his life on account of those perversions and abuses and errors.

"It is not wise nor right to reject truth because some phases of it may have become more or less encrusted with human errors. Better save the blessed truth and segregate it from any and all false admixtures!

"Too many of us do not seek this truth for ourselves, but we go along following our noses and our neighbors,' receiving what is received, and rejecting what is rejected. After awhile we find ourselves with an admixture of errors with a sweet name, and we become disgusted with all, and throw them all away; and because our errors had this sweet name we think we had all that was to be had, and we imagine that we have thrown away the sweet (though as we think false) reality also.

"Thus are men doing all over the earth and here in Plutone with Christ's work. Let me beg you all to study Christ. Study what he said and not the dogmas of others concerning him. Study what he says he said. Study what he did. Get into the spirit of his life, and you will thus get into the spirit of his words. Herein lies the way that leads to those pure spiritual realms; herein lies the truth that leads us to other truths; herein dwells the life that will conduct us to that Perfect Life; that blessed consummation, 'The spirit of the just made perfect,'"

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CHAPTER XXV.

BENEDICTUS' TALK TO THE EVIL

MINDS HE TEACHES THE

ATTAINMENT AND PERFECTION OF LIFE.

DEVOUTLY erect in the mid-ether in full view of all that convocation of countless minds-his soul going out to all in deep fervor of love for their exaltation—thus situated and environed, Benedictus, in pleading thought-forms, said:

"I am sent from God to teach you of truth and of perfect life, and to point you to the Father.

"There are some of you here who deny God.

"You should know that whatever is holy, whatever is good, whatever is light, whatever is pure, are of God. For these qualities and realities could not come out of evil.

"Ye must admit that ye are finite, limited beings, that ye are imperfect and unholy.

"Ye are in every way imperfect, and hence ye could not be the source of these perfections, which I proclaim to you are from God.

"Nor could these perfections of life, truth, love, goodness, purity, come out from the impersonal, unintelligent ether or other elements of this universe. Neither could your own Conscious beings come from a universal unconsciousness. "Yet there are some among you who deny God—the AllConscious One!

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"Ye know that we, wise Ariel and I, do not abide here in this state with you: and we affirm to you that we are from God's pure realms, where there is no evil, neither any of your lusts, nor any of your consequent pain, remorse and sor

rows.