I was shapen in iniquity, and
in sin did my mother conceive me, where I pray thee, O my God, where,
Lord, or when was I, thy servant innocent?" typifies the major concern
of the narrow, egotistical mystic. From the time that the ideas of the
later Greek philosophers had been forgotten until the present time, man
has floundered in a sea of supernaturalism. It is high time that man
faced his realities with fortitude in his own mentality, and when he
does this, there will be produced a race of men who will seek for truth,
for truth's sake, a race of supermen who will lead the world
intellectually.

It is to Russia that all eyes will turn in the next few generations. At
the present, she is going through the throes of childbirth. She is
immature, and as a child she staggers. The abuse and ridicule heaped
upon her now is but the repetition of that given by all frightened
societies of past ages, when they contemplated new ideas which their
immature minds could not fathom. But Russia will emerge in the not too
distant future, and the infant will shortly reach maturity; and that
maturity may set a standard for those timid and frightened societies
that at present look with dilated eyes upon her daring.

The age is approaching when the god idea in its entirety will be classed
with the gods of the Egyptians and Babylonians, when surplices and
sacramental plate will be exhibited in museums; when nurses will relate
to children the legends of the Christian mythology, as they now tell
them fairy tales. The gods of monotheism will join the gods of
polytheism and Yahveh and his associates will occupy in the minds of men
the position now held by the gods of Olympus. To our ancestors Jupiter
and Yahveh will have the same significance. "In a little time the
cathedrals and churches will have taken upon themselves the proud,
poetical glamour of abandoned temples. Men and women will enter them
with reverent indulgence as they now in meditative mood visit the few
remaining pantheons of the pagan worship." (_Llewelyn Powys_: "_An Hour
On Christianity._")

The age is approaching when the current idea of the hereafter will be
accounted a strange and selfish idea, just as we smile at the savage
chief who believes that his station will be continued in the world
beneath the ground, and that he will there be attended by his concubines
and slaves. The age is fast approaching when love, not fear, will unite
the human race. In that age, the _ideal_, n