Religious Research

There is undeniably a mystic side of Christianity once you throw off the chains of closed minded fundamentalism.

THE Christian Topography of Cosmas Indicopleustes is one of the prodigies of literature. The boldness and perverse ingenuity with which its author, from a long array of irrelevant scripture texts, seeks to construct an impossible theory of the universe can scarcely fail to astonish everyone who reads it. It made its appearance at that period in the world's history, when Christendom, fast losing the light of Greek learning and culture, was soon to be shrouded in the long night of mediaeval ignorance and barbarism.

A kind of mysterious veil hangs over the manner in which spiritual needs were satisfied during the older civilisations by those who sought a deeper religious life and fuller knowledge than the popular religions offered. If we inquire how these needs were satisfied, we find ourselves led into the dim twilight of the mysteries, and the individual seeking them disappears for a time from our observation.

I have tried to show how Christmas is or has been kept in various lands and ages, and to trace as far as possible the origin of the pagan elements that have mingled with the Church's feast of the Nativity.

In his letter on religion in politics, President Roosevelt takes the position, I believe, that we may look forward to the day when a Catholic, for instance, may be nominated and elected to the presidency of the United States of America. He also intimates that to refuse to vote for a Catholic on account of his religion would be bigotry!

I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of solid stone, two or three feet thick, the door of wood and iron, a foot thick, and the iron grating which strained the light, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up.