The Star in the West

244 THE STAR IN THE WEST energy , and then , curious to say , they discovered he had given them , as a slight reward , an immortal soul for all the trouble they had taken in turning him out a really nice , amiable , and respectable Deity . Having magnified their friend into a God , they then proceeded to enlarge their enemy into a Devil . This gross materialism in accordance with the universal law of polarity , set in motion by the hand of Idealism , pro duced as effect a fanciful spiritualism , which sought in the mysteries of life an answer that lay still on the cold lips of Death . These two powers , the Pantheonic materialism and the Gnostic spiritualism , bore the hybrid - Christianity . As all religions have finally become subservient to an interested priesthood , so have all religions ( how ever spiritual they may have been in their youth ) been materialized and sacrificed on the altar of gain . To this rule Christianity forms no exception ; once crudely and sincerely spiritual , it has become deceitfully materialistic . God , who was formerly an Almighty Pleroma , is now but the moke which carries the priest's eggs to market ; and Christ , the Saviour and Redeemer , the stick with which the wretched old jennet is beaten along . Christianity is no longer what its name implies , the system of doctrines as taught by Christ , but diametrically the reverse , the system of desires as wrought by Man . It is no longer “ Sell all ,” but “ Seize all ”; or “ Give all ,” but “ Get all .” Mammon is the God of to - day , and modern Christianity is ab solute and unadulterated materialism . As such it is not necessary to look far for its antithesis . Religions decay through materiality , and whenever religions decay mysticism arises ; for materiality cannot explain