Animal Rights History »» J. Todd Ferrier

On Behalf of the Creatures, "The Voice of Religion"

The Voice of Religion

IT is not a far step from the consideration of the Humane side of this question to that of its Religious aspect. For true humaneness is religious; and pure and undefiled religion is impossible where the humane feeling is not allowed to prevail. As Emanuel Swedenborg put it—"All religion has relation to life ; and the life of religion is to do good" To localise religion—that is, to make the radius of its influence for good and application to action confine itself to one's own people, or nation, or kind—is surely to so limit its spirit as to prevent its development to divine proportions. In essence all religions are one: they are only the various stages on the highway from the individual and national landmarks to the universal, in which creed and race are lost in the Illimitable Oneness of Life.

We may also rest assured that if natural law in the name of anatomy, chemistry, and physiology tells us that we are violating the law of our creation, and inverting its order, by eating flesh-foods; it will likewise be a violation of those marvellous laws of our spiritual being, since the spiritual cannot properly develop in a form constantly corrupted by low feeding and desires. And if science demonstrates to us that a diet composed of pure bread, fruits and vegetables makes a healthier and more robust body, and adds to the vigour of the mind and the clearness of the mental vision, must it not be patent to every [page 119] thoughtful, unbiased mind 'that such a dietary must also, become the best for the culture of the spiritual life?

It is with this object in view that I ask my readers to follow me in the Consideration of the Religious aspect. I will take first of all the Bible as an historical account of the race, because it is thus viewed by the vast majority: of Christian ; and then we will look at the higher claims of its esoteric teaching.

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To affirm that the Bible throughout teaches the humane diet principles would be to claim for our views an historical position that would soon .be declared untenable. For, unfortunately, many parts of-the sacred records do seem to favour the consumption of flesh.

But there are many other things the Bible seems to favour, such as the duplicity of Abraham over Sarah and Jacob with Esau; the thefts of the Isralites from the Egyptians; the murders committed by Abraham in intention; by Moses and Jael, Jephtha and in fact; the polygamy of Abraham, Jacob, David, and Solomon; the horrible Israelitish wars and the awful cruelties that were meted out to the captured enemies and even many worse things that one could enumerate. And for any doctrine which a man wishes for convenience to hold he might find texts that would seem to support his position.

I do not name these things to hold up to the scorn of the man who wants an excuse for his sin the shadowed pages of Holy Writ, but rather to emphasise this fact, that the Bible, not being an ordinary book, appeals to more than [page 120] the ordinary or historical mind, so we must ever differentiate between the fourfold planes of its teaching, viz., the merely historical; the intellectual; the moral; and the celestial, or the plane of man's innermost Being. Where the teaching is on the moral and spiritual planes, it is clearly stated, and in some instances most emphatically, that all flesh-foods must be eschewed. But where the appeal is only to men and women who are still on the lower planes, all the things I have named above are assumed to be permissible. So in our study of the Bible, we must ever bear in mind the spiritual devolution as well as the moral evolution of mankind. By the former, I mean his descent from higher planes of life; by the latter, I mean his return or ascent to divine conditions.

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In general, Christians hold it as a part of their belief that in his primary conditions prior to what is termed "The Fall," man was perfect. Now, is it not a remarkable thing that the story of man's beginnings as told in the poem of Creation should declare in favour of Humane diet? In the book of Genesis i, 29, 30, we read:

"And the Elohim (or Angels of God) said, Behold we have given you every herb-bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed: to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is a living soul, we have given every green herb; and it was so. And the Elohim of God saw [page 121] everything that they had made, and behold it was very good."

There was certainly no "Human Carnivora" then! When did the human race become Carnivorous? Ages after, when the human descent had reached a certain stage whose commentary may be found in Gen. vi. 1-8 Who were the Nephilim that were abroad? Were they not the embodiments of giant wrongs, the mighty animal forces let loose, the result of the loss of soul intuition and divine inspiration through a gross ministry to the flesh? As the outcome of this unhallowed condition of life, we have the flood—which was of a moral and spiritual order, not simply physical; and after it we have such teaching as could only be the outcome of expediency to meet the low needs of the remnant of the race—Gen. ix. 2-6: "And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air; with all wherewith the ground teemeth, and all the fishes of the sea, into your hand are they delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be food for you; as the green herb have I given you all."

Here Carnivorism is an acknowledged fact in man and beast Every moving thing was for food ! What a fall was there, from the first moral world dominion of man to the brute-force here revealed! And man is warned thus: "But flesh with the life thereof, the blood thereof, shall ye not eat," as if a restraint must be put upon his carnivorous habits.

And even here we see the close connection between Carnivorism and drunkenness, a fact which should weigh [page 122] with all who seriously face the temperance problem. For surely Genesis ix. 20 and 21, shows what Noah the carnivorous could do! It is a picture of the degradation of the spiritual man to the enjoyment of life through mere sensuous conditions, which ends in sensuality.

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The descent of Man has another meaning than that ascribed to it by Darwin. Man had a real descent, a going lower and lower after Noah, till the days of Sodom and Gomorrah were reached. To follow that descent all through its history is not necessary for my purpose. But when we arrive at the times of Moses we are back again to the days of genuine effort at retrenchment, so that we can recognise the elementary conditions of a new religious evolution. Hence we have certain restrictions put upon the killing and eating of beasts and fish described in chapter xiv. of Deuteronomy. The animals were then divided into clean and unclean. Not every beast could now be eaten, but only some of them. We must be woefully blind if we cannot see that this was nothing more than an expediency by which to gradually lift up tó higher religious possibilities a people who had sunk into the condition of semi-savages.

Then look at the immorality of the expediency! What they dare not eat themselves they could give to a stranger:

"Ye shall not eat anything that dieth of itself: thou shalt give it unto the stranger that is in thy gates; that he may eat it; or thou mayst sell it unto an alien: for thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God." Deut. xiv. 21.

We know, every pure-minded man or woman must [page 123] know, that holiness does not consist in what one eats or drinks, but in motive, purpose of heart, and action; though our eating and drinking may become serious hindrances to our attainment of purity, or they may be so regulated that they will help us to bring our body into such conditions as will make it more easy for us to attain to the highest life.

But what is true for ourselves must also be applied by us in our conduct to others. To make others do evil because we could not or dare not do it, would be to strike at the roots of righteousness. To say that we shall not eat of anything that dieth of itself, but that we may corrupt the stranger within our gates, or the alien, is to make the attainment of Divine Character in us impossible.

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My readers will, therefore, see that this passage from the history of Israel could not have been an inspired message from a High Source, but was only a dim illumination of a method by which the people might ultimately be led up from their barbaric conditions into purer manners and customs, and higher visions of truth.

Though the Ascent is slow, it is sure. Ages pass, till the days of the poets and prophets come, in which a higher note is struck. Those I cannot now discuss at length, though I may have occasion to make use of them for another aspect of the question. Let these Scriptures suffice for the present as illustrations: "He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man; that he may bring forth food out of the earth; and wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make [page 124] his face to shine, and bread that strengtheneth man's heart." (Psalm civ., 14, 15).

It has been well said that if the Jews had not misinterpreted the meaning of sacrifice and degraded the idea by offering in the name of Deity the life of animals and birds instead of those spiritual qualities which these signify, it is probable they would not have lived so largely, if at all, on flesh-meats. The remarkable thing is that the prophets denounced all such sacrifices, and called the nation to present to God purity of heart and goodness of life. And perhaps more remarkable still is the fact that in all their festivals of thanksgiving recorded in the psalms and the prophets, it is for the pure fruits of the earth that praise and thanks are rendered, and not for blood-stained meats. Their national thanksgivings were as great a contradiction of the ideal faith and life presented by their prophets, as our own are. For, whilst thousands daily give thanks to the Giver of every good and perfect gift ere they begin the consumption of some poor animal's body, yet the conscience of the nation pauses at the Harvest Thanksgiving, which is always and altogether associated with the growing of corn, fruits, and vegetables.

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Isaiah, the Old Testament Evangelist, repeatedly charged the Jews with Carnivorism, as in the opening chapter when he says that their hands are full of blood (Isaiah i., 10-15), concluding with these words

"Your hands are full of blood. Wash you, make you [page 125] clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes."

And again, "For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity," (Isaiah lix., 3.)

And yet once more as an interpretation of the foregoing, "He that killeth an ox is as he that killeth a man," (Isaiah lxvi., 3.)

In these latter words we have the full interpretation of that much ignored and much abused commandment, "Thou shalt not kill" — not simply human beings but beasts also, which are "living souls," according to the writer of Genesis.

This very prophet is the one who sings so sweetly and triumphantly as to captivate our senses and fill our imagination with magnificent dreams of a redeemed earth, out of which "Carnivorism" will be banished, when

"The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them." (Isaiah xi., 6-8.)

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Even before Isaiah, the prophet Hosea uttered the aspiration of the best sons of Israel when he wrote:

"And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the land, and will make them lie.down safely." (Hosea ii., 15.)

In this Scripture we have a clear hope definitely expressed that there will be an end to the Antagonism [page 126]between man and the sub-human world. And how can such Reconciliation take place if man persist in his "carnivorous" habits? There is much written about the great struggle in Nature for the conquest, showing that only the fittest survives. Viewed from a purely material scientific standpoint that may be correct. But to the mind that seeks for the meanings lying below or beyond the dimensions of material science, that crude doctrine will not prove a sufficient explanation of the habits of nature as the creation of a God of perfect justice, mercy, and righteousness. The Antagonism in nature has a cause; but we should not seek for it in the Creator, but rather in man, who, through the perversity of his will, and his descent into conditions that generate the things of the flesh, has created the Antagonism between himself and the animal kingdom.

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But even in those days there were circles of men who not only recognised the Antagonism, but sought to contribution to the Reconciliation by personal action. Hence two centuries after the times of Hosea we read in the book of Daniel that there were those carried captive into Babylon of the seed of the Royal household of Israel and, of the nobles, youths who had never defiled themselves with flesh-foods. Abstainers often make use of it for temperance purposes, but we will take it in its full meaning

"And the King spoke unto Ashpenaz the master of his eunuchs, that he should bring in certain of the children of Israel, even of the seed royal and of the nobles; youths [page 127] in whom there: was no blemish, but well favoured, and skilful in all wisdom, and cunning in knowledge, and understanding science, and such as had ability to stand in the King's palace; and that, he should teach them the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans. And the King appointed for them a daily portion of the King's meat, and of the wine which he drank, and that they should be nourished three years; that at the end thereof they might stand before the King.…But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the King's meat, nor with the wine which he drank: therefore he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself.… Now as for these four youths, God gave them knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom: and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams." Daniel i., 3—17. (Read all the passage.)

Surely to a serious reader of these words it must be self-evident that Daniel and, his friends belonged to an Order of Magians from whom they received their culture in the occult side of science as well as in spiritual wisdom, and that the Order prohibited flesh and wine as diet?

And is it not also most obvious that such a mode of life was highly commendable to God, since He gave them knowledge of the Soul—intuitive vision—which surprised and confounded even the, Babylonian magians, astrologers, soothsayers, and dream interpreters? And these facts granted; do they not show what the highest aspirations were of the best sons of Israel, how they fined themselves into bands of fellowship, out of which no doubt some evils grew just as they grow now out of [page 128] the best centres, through the misuse or perversion of some truth—the Pharisees, the Essenes, the Zealots, the Sadducees? Of these various parties the Essenes were the purest and noblest. Even if our Lord and John the Baptist did not belong to them, as many suppose, yet it is a remarkable fact that the principal doctrines and habits of the broader minded or more social Essenes were similar to those emphasised by our Lord.

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And it is even a still more remarkable thing that whilst the religious and political sects of those days, such as I have named, come in for condemnation, the Essenes are not even mentioned. The reason for this silence is said to be that they lived in the wilderness, far away from the centres of population, and that they did not often come into the towns or create direct opposition to Christ—all which excuses are surely lame in the extreme. May not the reason be found in the identity of all that was best in them with the ministry of our Lord? Certain it is that they were in the line of the prophets, men of culture and soul-refinement, men of spiritual vision who looked to God for the highest wisdom and revelation.

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Eusebius, a Father of the early part of the fourth century famous for his accurate and extensive knowledge, tells us that both St. James and St. Matthew were men who eschewed flesh-meats and wine. And in the same history Thomas is represented as the companion and fellow-worker of St. Matthew (Eusebius, Hist. iii.). Thus giving strong presumption that Thomas was [page 129] an ascetic like James and Matthew. (See Clement of Alexandria Paedag. ii., I; also Stromata vii., 13). And further Eusebius writes:—"Hegesippus also, who flourished nearest the days of the Apostles, in the fifth book of his Commentaries gives the most accurate account of him (James the Just), thus: 'But James the brother of the Lord, who, as there were many of his name, was surnamed The Just by all, from the days of our Lord till now.… He neither drank wine nor fermented liquors, and abstained from animal food," (History, Book II., Ch. xxiii.) And then in the Homilies of Clement, Peter is represented as an ascetic of a high order. (Hom. xiv., 1) And though I cannot discuss it now, yet in passing I would remark, that in its original thought the epistle of James (probably the earliest written of the books of the New Testament) is from beginning to end Essenian!

John the Baptist was an ascetic of the hermit type. He lived on the simple fare of the beans of the locust tree, and wild honey. His austere life as well as his teaching impressed everybody. He had disciples who followed him. Who were they? Some of those who followed Jesus, and afterwards became the most intimate disciples of the Master. And as all John's disciples were ascetics like the stricter Essenian type, they found it difficult to understand how Jesus ate with publicans and sinners. And to assume, as many do, that because Jesus went to the houses of some wealthy Jews to dine, He ate flesh-meats, [page 130] is a presumption too antagonistic to the whole drift of His life and teaching.¹

One might as well assume that because we dine with our friends we eat roast-flesh, or that we partake of everything that is set before us. That such meals were a burden to Christ one may gather from these words: "Martha, Martha, thou art anxious and troubled about many things (in preparation of the meal): but only one thing is necessary"—one simple dish. (Luke x., 41.)

I. know there are many who resent this translation of the passage as seeming to destroy the spiritual significance of our Lord's commendation of Mary. But, however tender these sentiments may be, they must not prevent us from getting at the Truth. For Truth is more than the rendering of Scripture according to our theological bias and prejudices.

That the words "one thing is needful" have reference to the eating, is not only shown by the sense of the context, but also by a literal reading of the Greek. And the best scholars of our own day, as well as many of the oldest and most orthodox, thus translate the passage. To me it always seems a strange position for professed followers of the Master to take up, when they repudiate the natural sense of Scripture in order to preserve those meanings which the limited and dogmatic theology of past centuries have read into it, to suit the polemics of their day. Even should our most cherished theological opinions have to go, yet it is better to lose what we imagined was a right [page 131] eye or a right arm, when they were only hindrances to the progression of our soul towards that spiritual wisdom which alone can lead us into the fulness of our life through the realisation of the Divine.

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I am well aware of the great importance that is attached to the decisions of the Council at Jerusalem, by those who seek for some evidence in Scripture that flesh-eating is permissible and right. But it were well to remember that the incident does not deal with the ethics of flesh-eating, but with Jewish ritual. It is a question whether the new converts shall be permitted to do certain things or not. The incident does not indicate that the Apostles were flesh-eaters, or in sympathy with those who were. Indeed every particle of the incident shows that there were other restrictions the Apostles put upon their own lives, though they did not deem it expedient to enforce them upon the heathen converts. The speech of James is as clear as noon-day in its meaning —

"Wherefore my judgment is, that we trouble not them which from among the Gentiles turn to God; but that we enjoin them that they abstain from the pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from what is strangled, and from blood."

And this from the decree of the Council, "For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and, to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things," etc. What was the greater burden that they might have imposed? Surely the sacred rules and self-denying practices which it was their habit to follow.

[page 132] But Paul, great and noble man as he was, never was one of the recognised heads at Jerusalem. He had been a Pharisee of the Pharisees —a sect neither as self-denying; nor as pure, nor as lofty in aim as the Essenes. He strove to be all things to all men that he might gain some. And we admire him for his strenuous endeavours to win the world for Christ. But no one could be all things to all men without running the great risks of most disastrous results. In more than one instance he told his converts they might eat things offered to idols without violating their conscience, providing they did not know these had been offered to idols, and they need not enquire; (I Cor., x., 27-30.) And in the previous verse (25th verse) he says, "Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, eat, asking no questions for conscience sake."

But were "things strangled" not sold in the shambles? In his higher stages of illumination Paul never could have written such words. They do not belong to the spirit of that teaching which said "Do I cause my brother to stumble by my flesh-eating? Then I will eat flesh-meats no more for ever! " The man who buffeted his body to keep it under, like the strictest of the monastics, and taught men to purify themselves and make their bodies fit temples for the dwelling of the Eternal Spirit, never could have given such counsel under inspiration. Thus one is forced to reject the sayings, and view them as interpolations by some hand who wanted Paul's authority to emphasise the permissibility of flesh-eating, or accept them as amongst those mistakes which an enthusiast so often makes when he [page 133] allows his enthusiasm for a great cause to run away with his reason, and blind his Intuition.

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But here as a further thought in connection with the teaching of the great Apostle an important question is forced upon our attention, which one of these days must receive the due consideration from Biblical scholars that it deserves. It is this: —

How is it that the Gospel of Paul is more to many people than the Gospel of those privileged souls who sat at the feet of Jesus and heard His secrets in the Upper Room? ¹

Surely these permissive decrees of the Apostles to meet the elementary conditions of idolatrous converts are not rocks on which to build a healthy Twentieth Century Christianity? They were only temporary seawalls to guide the fast-flowing river of new thought. Soon the day came when they were done away with, and the whole Christian Church was imbued with the thought of purity from flesh-defilement and humanity towards the beasts of the field. Anyone who wishes to inform himself of the truth of this statement need only read the Canons of the Primitive Church during the first four [page 134] centuries. Space forbids me making the references in this brief article.

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I would, however, draw my readers' attention to this fact, that it has even yet to be decided by serious students how much the Pauline Theology influenced the earliest gospel narratives from which our present gospel stories have been constructed; for these latter were not written till after the Epistles of Paul had been written and read in many of the communities. Certain it is that the Gospel of Luke and the earlier one of Mark both had their foundation in Paul's teaching.

The Sermon on the Mount is Essenian; and in the Axioms and Sayings we have a vision of the heart of Christ. And the fourth Gospel pulses with Divine life. In it the spiritual man breathes the very atmosphere of heaven. Its narratives are crammed full of a spiritual philosophy which the surface-reader and literalist mistakes for mere history. And its whole teaching centres round the thought of the soul begotten of God, whose temple is purified from everything that defileth, whose life moves on the plane of the highest ideal, whose spirit is diffused in love and peace, and who attains at last to the power of Divine manifestation.

The same brilliant thoughts captivated Paul at times, and carried him into the third heavens, where he heard and saw what he could not communicate to the churches in general—those sacred mysteries concerning God and the Soul which are only communicable to those who have passed the threshold of the Divine Birth.

[page 135] But though the heroic Apostle occasionally rose to such heights of Divine Illumination, there were also times in his experience when his Intuition was dimmed, his reasoning confused, and his presentation of Truth enveloped in materialism. A messenger of satan buffeted him. And as satan has relation to matter and time, there can be little doubt that his weakness was due to his clinging to some earthly desire and habit. If, as Lightfoot maintains, he suffered from epilepsy, then his somewhat erratic conditions and conclusions are easily accounted for. Or if we take the milder view of Ramsay, that Paul suffered from periodic attacks of malaria fever which was prevalent in Asia Minor, and was regarded as due to the immediate action of God, it will not be difficult to understand some of the doings and sayings of the Apostle. The writer is an ardent admirer of Paul, and feels sure the Apostle would weep did he know that words uttered in a moment of undue anxiety to help converts, or in an hour of his own mental aberration due to his physical weakness, were used by professed followers of the altogether humane, tender-hearted and loving Christ to bolster up the traffic in blood, and the barbaric habits and vitiated customs of a carnivorous people.

Nor should it be forgotten that, with scarcely any exception, Paul's letters were only meant for the local church for which they were written. They are not epistles in the truest sense, constructed as themes for the Church Catholic, or as individual illuminations and inspirations for all followers of the Master. They were [page 136] never meant to reach beyond the little communion to which they were sent, nor to be collected as a literature of the new faith. Had that been Paul's intention there can be little doubt that he would have dealt with many questions very differently, in a manner that would have given them no mere local colouring, but have made them applicable and helpful to all.

It is surely a low motive that moves men and women to take a passage from the Romans or Corinthians which has an almost individual and personal application, in order to find an excuse for gratifying their sensual desires at the expense of the animal race. Behold, I show you the more excellent way! Be one in your sympathy and love with the Universal Father!

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All Christians recognise the Bible as the Treasury of Spiritual Wisdom and Illumination. That is a truth accepted by all. But we must note this fact to which I called attention at the beginning of my article, that the teachings of the Bible are on four distinct planes, that the meanings vary according to the plane on which they are given, and that these meanings can only be understood and applied by the reader who is in harmony with the plane of their interpretation. This accounts for the diversity of interpretation of the same incident.

The Bible is much more an esoteric Book than exoteric. Like the Kingdom of God, its best meanings are hidden from the gaze of the vulgar; though it has also, like the kingdom of heaven, an historic sense that appeals to the multitude. Its four planes of teaching and illumination [page 137] are like four great moral Castes. It is four-square. It contains the fourth dimension as well as the first. It can touch, encourage and inspire the mind that is, still, in elementary moral conditions; and it has its sublime message for the soul that is rising to the Celestial. To the surface-reader, even though devout and enthusiastic for his faith, all this will seem nonsense; but to the soul that has come to the realisation of the spiritual vision, it will require no demonstration.

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Purity of body is an essential condition of life for the soul that belongs to the Highest Caste. There can be no higher and inner spiritual growth without such purity. The temple must be cleansed ere the sacrifice can be perfect. The Eternal Spirit cannot be expected to make a human body sustained on the products of the shambles His dwelling place, any more than He would the dens of murder themselves. And the highest life a man can aim at is the realisation in himself of that Eternal Spirit—the realisation on all planes of his Being—spirit, heart, mind, body. For each one is the vehicle of the other, the medium by which it manifests itself, and so is dependent upon the other's purity. Thus, when the body is kept impure through pernicious diet and living, the mind remains impure. When the mind is in that state its vision is clouded, however great its powers of acquisition may be, and so the heart or soul-being of the man has an imperfect instrument at his command. And when the heart is not in its right place—the place of Divine compassion, humaneness, and love—the spirit fails to grasp [page 138] the significance of life, with all its great and sacred meaings, and can never in that state rise to the Divine.

The four planes of religious life, then are these—the body, the mind, the heart, and the spirit. The body is animal; the mind is rational; the heart or soul is the Divine. When a man belongs to the plane of the body, he is in the circle of the lowest religious Caste. He is a literalist. He discerns nothing beyond the outward sense. Such a man will find many passages to help him in his belief that flesh-eating is right. Indeed, he will even come to the conclusion that God commanded that it should be eaten. That man is still a natural man, though he may have a great deal of a certain kind of religious fevour. He hears and sees God only in the world of sense where there are demonstrations by fire, and earthquake, and whirlwind. It is such men who wrest the Scripture to their destruction—that is, by their low reading of this meanings they retard their own soul's progress. They live in the world of religious effects rather than in the inner sphere of causes.

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One state higher comes the man who lives in the plane of the mind, or rational circle. He applies reason (that is, mere intellect) to the very histories which enslave the Caste beneath him, and repudiates many of them as improbabilities, and not a few as Impossible. If his heart does not influence him, he becomes a religious iconoclast, destroying the material foundations of faith [page139] without having the genius to lay other foundation of a more certain character. He is the man of mere science who scorns humane feeling, who is rules by his intellect alone, and therefore eats and drinks, slays and makes alive again, merely in order to feed his intellect with a knowledge of material fact. Even this man, if only he would give his mind the opportunity, might at last come to the vision of life in the plane above him, and learn those divine things which can come through the humane and loving heart alone.

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Then there is the man of the heart—the truly spiritual man. His best knowledge comes through his Intuition. His affection guides him more than his intellect. He is not a literalist thought he may accept all the historic records of religion as divinely inspired. He is not an iconoclast, though through the possession of a scientific mind he may weigh all evidence. He is a disciple of the Sacred Heart—one who is caught up by the sublimity of Truth itself, wherever found, or by whomsoever spoken. And being so, he will seek truth in the highter planes of being, and not on the outer planes of existence. Laws of expediency passed in the process of national or religious evolution will not be high enough for him to accept as the final standard of attainment, or even to walk by. He will rather seek those laws written neither on tables of stone nor in hieroglyphics, but in the Heart where the Divine Love reigns. And where the Eternal Love reigns there can be no narrowness, exclusiveness, conceit, grossness of living, and inhuman attitude towards [page 140] the sentient creatures under him. The spiritual man is to become one with the Divine. That is the end of all religion. And when a man attains even to a measure of Oneness with God, he must also recognise his Oneness with all Life. Such a man rises into the conditions of the fourth dimension—the state of Celestial fellowship—the ancient region of the gods—the plane where the great realities are things of heaven and not things of earth.

This man will recognise that the Angelic attitude towards man should be man's attitude towards the races beneath him. The Angelics are Perfects—souls in whom the universal life has been realised. They do not tyrannise over man, though they are above him they do not destroy his physical organism and absorb him, though they are his superiors. Their whole attitude and constant ministry is rather towards lifting him up in such a way as to help him to unfold his best life, ennoble his thought, purify his desires, and strengthen his whole fourfold organism. In short, the Angelic ministry to man is the fitting of him for and the constraining of him to the realisation of life on their own plane of Being, by which he becomes enrolled a member of the Highest Caste, the Spiritual Priesthood, the Oligarchy of God. For the end of man is to become as the Angels, to realise himself a member of the household of God, one of the Divinely Royal Priesthood who rules and reigns with The Christ.

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From this fact, then, we learn the exact relationship [page 141] of heaven to earth, and of man to the races beneath him. Even as the ministries of heaven view us as subjects of evolutionary development, candidates for the larger and divine life into which they have entered so ought we to look upon the whole creation as one glorious whole in various stages of evolutionary development and attainment. And this view would enable us to recognise the animal world, not only as useful to us in various forms of service, but as also presenting many opportunities for service from us towards our kinsfolk in the lower castes of the physical plane.

And is it not quite reasonable to suppose that a gentle, disciplinary but humane ministry to them on our part may be as necessary for their development to higher conditions in a future state of being; even as the Angelic ministry is essential to ours? I am well aware that this is an aspect of animal possibilities and uses not often considered in this country, and but little believed. But the ignorance of the multitude and the indifference of Christian people surely need not militate against the truth of it all! If mere indifference on the one hand and ignorance of the multitude on the other had been the touchstone by which any new claims were considered or rejected, then we should never have become the possessors of our magnificent religion.

I confess myself absolutely dumbfounded to see how eagerly professedly Christian men and women reject the doctrine of the sacredness of all life, and repudiate their most serious and heavy responsibilities towards the animal races, all because these things touch the vicious [page 142] habits and barbaric customs in the midst of which they have been reared. Certain it is that there can be no attainment of the Angelic within us whilst we take that attitude. Truly, as was said so long ago, "the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together," "waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God."

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And so my final appeal is to you, my reader, whoever you may be. Would you be one of the sons of God? Would you manifest in and through yourself the Divine pity, sympathy, and love? Would you attain to the Angelic condition, and minister even as heaven ministers to you? Then recognise your kinship to the races beneath you, and realise your responsibility towards them. Eat them not any more than you would your own kith and kin. Recognise that in many of them there is a brother or sister soul. Know through sympathy with them how truly and keenly they feel, and raise your voice against the sufferings inflicted upon them by a false science. Be to them as you would have the Angels be to you! Protect them with the wings of your pity, even as you would have God spread His Presence over you. So shall you be helped up to the Angelic ! The Divine ! To become one with God !

p130-¹For the fuller esoteric interpretation regarding John the Baptist, see "The Master: His Life and Teachings," by the Reverend J. Todd Ferrier. ^[130-1*back]

p133-¹ We would recommend the readers to acquaint themselves with the Author's later writings wherein he unveils the part played by Paul and those who chose him as the Chief Apostle, in the development of the outward history of historical Christianity. For they had much to do with the misrepresentation of the Christhood of the Master, and the loss of most important Sayings spoken by Him, in which the true nature of the Manifestation was set forth, and the Mysterious Sin-offering unveiled, together with the Sayings giving the true interpretation of the Redemption, the finding of Israel, the Regeneration, the Parousia, and the coming again of the Son of Man. ^[133-1*back]