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But the conscience of the world is so guilty that it always assumes that people who investigate 
heresies must be heretics; just as if a doctor who studies leprosy must be a leper. Indeed, it is only 
recently that science has been allowed to study anything without reproach. Matter being evil, the 
less that we know about it the better --- such was the Christian philosophy in the ages which it 
darkened. Morris Travers told me that his father, an eminent physician, had been ostracized, and 
had lost much of his practice, for joining the Anthropological society. Later still, Havelock Ellis and 
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Edward Carpenter have been treated with the foulest injustice by ignorant and prejudiced people. 
My mother always believed that Great Eastern, the first steamship of any size to speak of, met with 
repeated disasters because God was jealous, as He had been of the tower of Babel. In 1917 my 
cousin, Lawrence Bishop, told me that he thought that "the Lord prepared a great iceberg" for the 
Titanic in annoyance at the claim of the shipbilders that she was unsinkable. William Whiteley had 
several fires, which my mother took as the repartee of the Almighty to the merchant's assumption 
of the title "Universal Provider", which could be properly attributed only to God. 
It is the modern fashion to try to dismiss these barbarous absurdities as excrescences on 
Christianity, but they are of the essence of the religion. The whole theory of the atonement implies 
that man can set up his own will in opposition to God's, and thereby excites Him to anger which can 
only be pacified by the sacrifice of His son. It is, after all, quite as reasonable to think of God as 
being irritated by a shipbuilding programme as by idolatry. The tendency has, in fact, been to 
forget about the atonement altogether and to represent Jesus as a "Master" whose teachings are 
humanitarian and enlightened. Yet the only evidence of what he actually said is that of the gospels 
and these not only insist upon the incredible and immoral sides of Christianity, but contain actual 
Logia which exhibit Jesus in the character of a superstitious fanatic who taught the doctrine of 
eternal punishment and many others unacceptable to modern enlightenment. General Booth and 
Billy Sunday preach perfectly scriptural abominations. Again, much of the teaching of Jesus which is 
not savage superstition is diametrically opposed to the ideas of those modern moralists who reject 
his supernaturalism and salvationalism. The injunction "Take no thought for the morrow" is 
incompatible with "Preparedness", insurance and any other practice involving foresight. The 
command to break off all family and social relationships is similarly unethical. The truth, of course, 
is that these instructions were given to a select body of men, not to the world at large. 
Renunciation of the world is the first step toward spiritual illumination, and in the East, from the 
beginning of recorded time to the present day, the yogi, the fakir, the bhikkhu and the monk take 
this course, expecting that the piety of their neighbours will supply them with a means of 
livelihood. 
It is not only illogical to pick out of the gospels the texts which happen to suit one's own prejudices 
and then claim Christ as the supreme teacher, hut his claims to pre-eminence are barred by the fact 
that all passages which are not fiendish superstition find parallels in the writings of earlier masters. 
The works of Lao Tzu, the Buddhist cannon, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad-Gita, the Talmud and the 
philosophy of many of the early Greeks, to say nothing of the sacred books of Egypt, contain the 
whole of 
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the metaphysics, theology and ethics to which modern enlightenment can assent. It is monstrous 
and mschevious for liberal thinkers to call themselves Christians; their nominal adhesion delays the 
disruption of the infamous system which they condone. To declare oneself a follower of Jesus is not 
only to insult history and reason but to apologize for the murderers of Arius, Molinos and Cranmer, 
the persecutors of science, the upholders of slavery and the suppressors of all free thought and 
speech. 
At this time I had not carried these arguments to their logical conclusion. The Cloud upon the 
Sanctuary told me of a secret community of saints in possession of every spiritual grace, of the keys 
to the treasurers of nature, and of moral emancipation such that there was no intolerance of 
unkindness. The members of this Church lived their secret life of sanctity in the world, radiating