There are exceptional individuals all along the way, who conceive, hold, and exercise the spirit of the Master, and sink self in the service of man, and but for these the organized priesthood would be execrated by mankind long before. The organized church deifies, where the true disciple humanizes and helps mankind in the name and in the spirit of the Master. This is the spirit, the origin, the genius and the history of every Avatar, of Christna, and all the Buddhas, the Saviors and Redeemers of history. The orthodox Christian of to-day, whether Catholic or Protestant, will be likely to admit the foregoing outline except as it applies to his own religion. Whereas it is abundantly proven to-day regarding his own religion as nowhere else in history. The histories of former religions are vague, distant, and so covered over by tradition, myth, and folklore, as to be difficult to trace. The beginnings, history, and progress of the Christian religion are comparatively nearer at hand, and the process above outlined readily demonstrable. Not only so, but the recognition of the facts and processes is everywhere in evidence. This fact, however, by no means ends the controversy. Traditions, creeds, and dogmas die hard, and fight to the last extremity. Nothing else known to man fights so desperately and dies so hard as an organized priesthood, and beyond this, they are upheld by the ignorance, superstition, the fear, and the faith of the masses. Their adherents often believe and assume that they have discovered final truths, essential and unalterable verities. They undertake to support and to maintain these by dogmatic authority, a holy book, a "thus sayeth the Lord." "There it is, down in black and white." No further evidence is required. To question such authority is to be damned. To believe, accept, and to conform, is to be _saved_. Difference of opinion and of interpretation inevitably arise, even among those who dare not question the ultimate authority and genuineness of the original revelation. Hence arise sects, schisms, and theological warfare. Notwithstanding all this, the original revelation becomes a matter of thorough investigation and of criticism. The so-called "higher criticism" had already discovered errors in translation, and contradictions in interpretation, resulting in a "revised edition" of the sacred books, while under the name "_Pragmatism_," certain metaphysical writers and accredited teachers have undertaken to determine essential meanings and interpretations, and to submit religious revelations, creeds, dogmas, and theologies to critical analysis. How far this analysis has gone, and how little of the original interpretation actually remains, only they are aware who keep abreast of current thought, and who with open mind care more for the simple truth than for custom, tradition, theologies, and the folklore of the past. Dogmatic theological authority is completely undermined, and its days are numbered.[1]