Were I asked how I would dare attempt “to dethrone the gods, overthrow the temple, destroy the law which feeds the priests and props the realm; I should answer as the Buddha is made to answer in the Light of Asia: ‘What thou bidst me keep is form which passes while the free truth stands; get thee to thy darkness.’”
“What good gift hath my brother but it comes from search and strife (inward) and loving sacrifice.”
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Correspondence
ARE THE TEACHINGS ASCRIBED TO JESUS CONTRADICTORY?
There are none so blind as those who won’t see, excepting those who can’t!
In Light, for September 10th, there is a letter from Dr. Wyld, who writes as follows: “In the last number of Light there is a quotation from the Spiritual Reformer in which the writer shows the absurdity of the idea that Jesus was not an historic being. But while thanking the writer for this contribution, I would take the strongest objection to his assertion that many of Christ’s teachings are contradictory and mistaken. This is an assertion occasionally made by Spiritualists, and whenever I have met with it I have asked for evidence of the assertion, but hitherto I have received none.”
But that might surely have been easily supplied. Here, for example, are a few very direct contradictions in the speaker’s own words. Every one knows how secret were the teachings in their nature; how secretly they were conveyed in private places apart; how secretly his secrets were to be kept; and yet in presence of the High Priest Jesus makes the astounding declaration: “I have spoken openly to the world; I always taught in synagogues; and in secret spake I nothing.”—John xviii. 20.