152 THE THRESHOLD OF EVOLUTION 

 join together a series of the most disconnected facts, and so 

 try to convey to my reader the manner in which all religions 

 have presumably become evolved, and I wish my reader to 

 realise how visionary any such attempt must necessarily be, 

 for with the full knowledge of his infinite wisdom, the world's 

 creator has evidently realised that the growth and evolution 

 of the truths of revelation, must be of a kaleidoscopic order, 

 made up of the same bits of coloured glass of revelations. 



It is continually seeking a rearrangement so as to strike 

 on the eye of our mental vision in a new and attractive form 

 of beauty ever regaining fresh powers of attraction, yet 

 altered, beautified, multiplied and intensified in increased 

 variety, by being reflected and re-reflected by the mirrors that 

 form the sides of the kaleidoscopes of different religious be- 

 liefs, so that they may again and again appeal to our mental 

 sight with revived wonder and attraction, and yet at the same 

 time remain the same half dozen truths of revelation which 

 are only old friends with new faces brightened and beautified 

 by some new form of religion. In like manner we find the 

 fundamental truths of revelation are placed by numerous reli- 

 gious beliefs, in new and varied forms to suit the different 

 evolutions of man's mind at different times of evolution. For 

 when we remember that in every country that has contributed 

 largely to the growth of religions or governments, God has 

 wiped out of existence all records of the past, so that there is 

 little or no connection whatever to fasten the links together, it 

 is easy to realise how they have been contorted. 



Thus in China, the first birthplace of Religion, all 

 advancement stopped short eight thousand years ago, so that 

 not only does China add nothing to our records by monu- 

 ments or temples, but she has never produced any edifice of 

 grandeur, monument or inscription to act as a guide to reli- 

 gious advancement, and its architecture is to-day of primitive 

 savagery. On the other hand Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, 

 India, Greece and Rome have added proof after proof in the 

 records of paganism extending back seven thousand years 

 before Christ; but detailed revelation cannot be traced by 

 history more than five hundred years before Christ in any 

 of these countries, least of all in India, Persia and Palestine, 

 the lands of its birth. I may as well mention here that the 

 manner in which one teaching of religion or sect becomes 



