is the Chief Builder
(_tektos_) of _arche_: the primordial virgin matter which is also the
chief source of all things.

Thus we see that when the opening sentence of St. John's gospel is
properly translated, our Christian Religion teaches that once a virgin
substance enfolded the divine Thinker:--God.

That is the identical condition which the earlier Greeks called Chaos. A
little thought will make it evident that we are not arbitrary in finding
fault with the translation of the gospel, for it is self-evident that a
word cannot be the beginning, a thought must precede the word, and a
thinker must originate thought before it can be expressed as a word.

When properly translated the teaching of John fully embodies that idea,
for the Greek term _logos_ means both the reasonable thought,--(we also say
Logic),--and the word which expresses this (logical) thought.

1) _In the primordial substance was thought, and the thought was
with God And God was the word_,

2) THAT, [The Word], _also was with God in the primal state_.

Later the divine WORD; the Creative Fiat, reverberates through space and
segregates the homogeneous virgin substance into separate forms.

3) _Every thing has come into existence because of that prime
fact_, [The Word of God], _and no thing exists apart from that
fact._

4) _In that was Life._

In the alphabet we have a few elementary sounds from which words may be
constructed. They are basic elements of expression, as bricks, iron and
lumber are raw materials of architecture, or as a few notes are component
parts of music.

But a heap of bricks, iron and lumber, is not a house, neither is a
jumbled mass of notes music, nor can we call a haphazard arrangement of
alphabetical sounds a word.

These raw materials are prime necessities in construction of architecture,
music, literature or poetry, but the contour of the finished product and
the purpose it will serve depends upon the arrangement of the raw
materials, which is subject to the constructor's design. Building
materials may be formed to prison or palace; notes may be arranged as
fanfare or funeral dirge; words may be indited to inspire passion or
peace, all according to the will of the designer. So also the majestic
rhythm of the Word of God has wrought the primal substance: _arche_, into
the multitudinous forms which comprise the phenomenal world, according to
His will.

Did the reader ever stop to c