saw in themselves. They saw but their mental
concept. The Bible records humanity's changing, evolving concept of
God, of that 'something not ourselves which makes for righteousness.'
And this concept gradually changed from the magnified God-man of the
Old Testament, a creature of human whims and passions, down to that
held by the man of Nazareth, a new and beautiful concept of God as
love. This new concept Jesus joyously gave to a sin-weary world that
had utterly missed the mark. But it cost him his earthly life to do
it. And the dark record of the so-called Christian Church, both
Protestant and Catholic, contains the name of many a one who has paid
the same penalty for a similar service of love.

"The Chaldeans and Egyptians," he went on, after a moment's reflective
pause, "gave the Hebrews their account of the creation of the
universe, the fall of man, the flood, and many other bits of mythical
lore. And into these stories the Hebrews read the activity of their
God, and drew from them deep moral lessons. Egypt gave the Hebrews at
least a part of the story of Joseph, as embodied in the hieroglyphics
which may be read on the banks of the Nile to-day. They probably also
gave the Hebrews the account of the creation found in the second
chapter of Genesis, for to this day you can see in some of the oldest
Egyptian temples pictures of the gods making men out of lumps of clay.
The discovery of the remains of the 'Neanderthal man' and the 'Ape-man
of Java' now places the dawn of human reason at a period some three to
five hundred thousand years prior to our present century, and,
combined with the development of the science of geology, which shows
that the total age of the earth's stratified rocks alone cannot be
much less than fifty-five millions of years, serves to cast additional
ridicule upon the Church's present attitude of stubborn adherence to
these prehistoric scriptural legends as literal, God-given fact. But,
to make the right use of these legends--well, that is another thing."

"And that?"

The explorer hesitated. "I find it difficult to explain," he said at
length. "But, remember what I have already said, there is, there
_must_ be, a foundation beneath all these legends which admonish
mankind to turn from evil to good. And, as I also said, that
foundation must be very broad. I have said that I was in search of a
religion. Why not, you may ask, accept the religious standard which
Jesus set? That was the new concep