In return, I suggested that I would gladly help in his work if he needed money, so his subscription paper came out, and he left, probably happier in his pocket than in his mind. After he left I had some such thoughts as these with my books: All religions start with remarkable personages, gradually elevated into gods and semi-gods. A distinguished English writer says of Buddha, “It has almost invariably happened that the later followers of such a teacher have undone his work of moral reform. They have fallen back upon evidence of miraculous birth, upon signs and miracles and a superhuman translation from the world, so that gradually the founders in history become prodigies and extra natural, until the real doctrines shrink into mystical secrets, known only to the initiated disciples, while the vulgar turn the iconoclast into a mere idol.” Would not this apply to Christians as well? Another says, “All popular theology, especially the scholastic, has a kind of appetite for absurdity and contradiction. If that theology went not beyond reason and common sense, her doctrines would appear too easy and familiar. Amazement must of necessity be raised, mystery affected; darkness and obscurity sought after and a foundation of merit afforded to the devout votaries, who desire an opportunity of subduing their rebellious reason by the belief in the most unintelligible sophisms.” Ignorance begets superstition. Then easily comes a belief in the miraculous, and from this, creeds are formulated and faith placed in them. People have but little sense where their hearts are concerned, in religion as in love. There has never been a proposition so absurd or outrageous but has had believers in it. The more impossible and mysterious a thing can be made, the more readily it will be accepted. Mystery not only fascinates many people but makes them its devotees. One of the strange things is, that people who demand a reason for everything about them, become dupes of that which is afar off, which they cannot know and which no mortal can explain. Objecting to that which is reasonable, they rush to accept that which is absurd and incredible. Human nature is fascinated by the mysterious. The clergy have to perform and preach something, and that something would lose all its awe and force if there were no mysticism in it. What would jugglery be if every one understood the tricks of the juggler?