GREAT as is the reverence which we have for our religion, we scarcely realize how much more ancient and venerable it is than is usually supposed. But archaeology is doing much to enlighten opinion on that point. For instance, we read in The Discoveries in Crete, by Ronald M. Burrows, that
It was long ago suggested that the Roman Basilica, which formed the earliest type of Christian church, was derived both in structure and in name from the "Stoa Basilike" or King's Colonnade at Athens. This was the place where the King Archon, the particular member of the board of nine annual magistrates who inherited the sacred and judicial functions of the old kings, tried cases of impiety. It had further seemed possible that the building as well as the title was a survival from some earlier stage, when a king was a king in more than name. What we have found at Knossos seems curiously to confirm this suggested chain of inheritance.
At one end of a pillared hall, about thirty-seven feet long by fifteen wide there is a narrow raised dais, separated from the rest of the hall by stone balustrades, with an opening between them in which three steps give access to the center of the dais. At this center point, immediately in front of the steps, a square niche is set back in the wall, and in this niche are the remains of a gypsum throne.... We seem to have here ... a pillar hall with a raised "Tribunal" or dais bounded by "Cancelli" or balustrades, and with an "Exedra" or seated central niche which was the place of honor. Even the elements of a triple longitudinal division are indicated by the two rows of columns that run down the Hall. Is the Priest-King of Knossos, who here gave his judgments, a direct ancestor of Praetor and Bishop seated in the Apse within the Chancel, speaking to the people that stood below in Nave and Aisles?
The antiquity and universality of the doctrinal basis of Christianity forms the subject of frequent remarks in Theosophical writings, as it is a topic much to the fore in religious circles just now. But here the question is of ecclesiastical architecture; and that too, as we see, is ancient and pre-Christian. Little do many people seem to suspect that the grand cathedral, with its nave and aisles, its transept, its chancel, and its altar, are founded on such ancient models. While such facts are for the most part unknown or deliberately ignored, there are some Christian writers who admit them, but are disposed to regard Christianity as a capstone to the entire edifice of ancient wisdom, a final and complete revelation. Whether or not Christianity really occupies or can occupy such a commanding position is of course a question of fact; the proofs must be practical; by results we must judge.
Mere claims will not replace actualities, nor would claims be needed where actualities were present. If Christianity can maintain such a position, it will doubtless win the respect it so yearns for.
THE WORLD OF WOMANHOOD: by Grace Knoche
THERE are subjects which even thought floats round and round, as a bird above her nestlings or incense over the flame which gave it birth—subjects which the brain-mind hesitates to touch directly, so reverential is the appeal they make to the inner and the best in heart-life. Words seem out of place. Even reason before them pauses, makes obeisance, and dowered with glamor, passes on, as one might pass who stands for a moment in the presence of a new light. There are events, though they are few, that so enshrine within themselves the deeper sacredness of soul-life that words seem poor and mean as carriers of their largess. The heart feels intuitively that silence, "the great Empire of Silence," alone could hope to attune human lives to the voice of them.
Deep answereth unto deep, but sometimes not by the Marconi messages of the soul. There are times when from deep to deep the mystic, intangible bridge that is to be builded must use living words for its piers and masonry. But they must be living words, golden-tongued words, words glowing with the lambent touch of flame rekindling flame. They must be vital, electric, surcharged with the mighty currents of compassion and that love that layeth down its life for a friend; heart-messengers of Wisdom herself they must be, and even then can build no bridge royal enough for Wisdom's whole mighty entourage to pass over when the Event is such as recent days have brought forth in the world of womanhood—the world of womanhood, bear in mind, which is a larger, more soulful realm than the world of women, merely.