DEVOTED TO PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITYAN VOL. 46 KANSAS CITY, MO., JANUARY, 1917 No. 1 THE NEW YORK THE METAPHYSICS OF THE LBIBLEY HE metaphysical interpretation of the Bible reveals many beautiful meanings hitherto un known. New thought and new teaching confront one at every step, as the spiritual message of the Word is understood in its personal application. For many centuries the Bible has been interpreted in a biographical, historical and exoteric religious sense, and not until recently was it even suspected that it contains a perfect analysis of individual man and offers a perfect plan for his soul unfoldment. So long as Christians thought hat man was saved by belief and that his own personal regeneration was not a necessary part of his salvation, the esoteric teaching of the Bible was not discovered: Religious thinkers were satisfied with the orthodox idea of God, Christ, heaven, hell, atonement, and they fought sturdily against any argument that questioned their understanding of these great realities of human experience. Most of the independent thinkers went into Agnosticism, and either ignored or attacked with great bitterness the very foundation principles of Christianity. But as time went on a new type of thinkers appeared; men who sought the spiritual essence of the Word, and who believed that orderly and perfect unfoldment of all the spiritual powers of the individual was the sole aim and purpose of life. To these, belief was but a beginning, and faith had to become a vital fact of personal experience, evidenced by actual demonstration of soul growth in the individual. No longer could one be a Christian "for nigh onto forty year" |