We have finished the description of God's great ministry. We have been present at the most beautiful miracle in life. We have looked at the manifestation of a consciousness so lofty and pure, so loving and angelic, that it has become a gospel, a revelation, and a road for mankind pointed out by God Himself, away from pain and misery, from war and torment, from superstition and vileness, forward to light and rejoicing, to nobility and bliss, to a sublime existence in God's proximity, to lasting peace on earth.
      But how has mankind accepted this sublime gospel, this revelation of love?
      Nineteen hundred years afterwards, in our time, it seems only mysticism to many men. But is it really mystical, miraculous, unnatural? Most certainly not. Nothing could be more natural and straightforward. Perhaps someone at this point would like to protest about the materializations, but to that one may say that such phenomena have long been accepted by highly developed individuals and their occurrence is denied only by people who have never experienced them themselves. Such protests thus lack authority, no matter if the person protesting be a professor or a doctor holding a high position in society. But, in addition, if one must recognize that materializations, because of their rarity up to the present on earth, cannot be proved to a materialistic intellectual and to the great majority of men, that does not lower the position of the Saviour, because his mission was fulfilled abundantly in his everyday activities alone which were visible and comprehensible to everybody, and at its culmination it was fulfilled abundantly in the words he uttered in his deepest humiliation: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do". If the majority of people were to accept and practise the spirit in these words, this would be enough to save the world. The ordinary man's ability to form a judgment on materializations and on the "resurrection" made possible by them is about as small as a bushman's power to arrive at a conclusion on the atomic theory; consequently the above mentioned materializations cannot be the principal subject in the activity of world salvation; but they are as it were a sacred promise whose fulfilment is certainly experienced by every individual as one of the main results of following in the footsteps of the Saviour. Any denial of materializations and any discussion on them is therefore foolish and is only a proof of complete ignorance. But that part of God's great ministry which the physical senses and an ordinary intellect are capable of understanding is the physical activity of the Saviour. And no other event in history has occurred so openly and made such an unforgettable impression on the spectator as the Christ drama has done. Probably present-day terrestrial science maintains that the Christ drama is unhistorical and unscientific as there is no true "proof" of its authenticity. But that assertion is based on a mere physical and therefore imperfect power of perception whose only field of activity is perishable material and which is helpless before the ideas and values behind the material phenomena. Present-day material science can thus analyse only the perishable phenomena in the great divine ministry but not the eternal values manifested by them. As about two thousand years have passed since then and as such a period of time is an inconveniently long "distance" for a physical inspection, it is natural that there should now be discussions as to whether Jesus had blue or brown eyes, or black or red hair, or whether he was born of a virgin or whether Joseph was his father, or whether he was stoned or crucified, whether he was put in this or that tomb, and so on; or that, in modern times, there should be assertions, that he never existed at all. One can easily understand that such narrow, crippled or simple-minded ideas hasten the growth of superstitions. Probably there have never been so many erroneous ideas about any other man as there have been about Jesus of Nazareth. Every distinction has been attributed to him, from that of insignificant crank to the world's soul. The latter form or degree of superstition has very evil consequences when people decorate it with high-flown sagacity and call it occult truth. Hundreds of men have let themselves be deceived by such a mistaken idea of grandeur. Because of it their concept of the Saviour has gradually deviated so much from his true image that it would be impossible for them to recognize him if one day he were suddenly to appear in "flesh and blood" before them. In that event history would repeat itself: the "first" would become the "last" on the road with him to the "kingdom of heaven".
      But high above all forms of discussion and mistaken conceptions, high above the perishable matter, there shines forth as an incontestable fact, the radiance from Golgotha, the eternal words of "the way, the truth, and the life"; and living in accordance with them is the salvation of the world.
      Those words are without any shadow of doubt unambigous and clear, they contain no mysticism. As mysticism and superstition strongly encourage one another and thus have the evil effect of a spiritual cancer, the world saviours try hard to avoid mysticism; they are indeed sources of light. Yet it often happens that mysticism appears around a world saviour, but the cause of this is usually unenlightened followers who are not capable of conceiving his true greatness and whose crude love for their master together with their unbridled imaginations create grotesque ideas about him. Unintentionally and also unconsciously they thereby keep the Saviour "nailed to the cross".
      As such mistaken ideas are more or less unnatural, they are the cause of indignation in many places and discord among the different groups of followers or sects, because some can see through the mystical elements and others cannot. And very often such mysticisms form unconquerable barriers between intellectuals and the Saviour, as it is impossible for an intelligent man to believe in what seems obviously unnatural to him, even if he completely lacks the power to conceive the real truth. In that way many men are kept away from the real truth about the Saviour and his teachings; even his own disciples and priests are often the cause of this, although of course unconsciously. If one looks at the behaviour of the majority of men on earth in the light of the radiance of salvation from Golgotha: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do", and if one compares that behaviour with the way in which the Saviour practically demonstrated the idea of the same words, one realises that the world is still very far from salvation.
      It is precisely superstition which is in a great measure responsible for the fact that mankind is still living so imperfectly in harmony with the divine radiance from Golgotha, although it has been illuminated by it for almost two thousand years. Superstition has caused people gradually to incline to treat the idea of salvation in quite a selfish manner, so that they have acquired the illusion that one is saved only by praying for forgiveness for errors and "sins". Salvation only through the "grace of God" and the "blood of Jesus" would mean, among other things, that people would be freed from the consequences of errors and injustices committed against their fellows. Because of this illusion people have finally quite ignored the way of behaviour of the Saviour and have thought that only Jesus himself or some god could behave in that way and that it is greatly beyond the power of any ordinary man on earth. As a result of this despondent illusion people have thought good works and sincere serene conduct valueless as a basis for salvation. People have become victims of the belief in the "salvation through grace" and "forgiveness of sins" in spite of the emphatic words of the Son of God: "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them"; "Put up again thy sword into its place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword"; "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God"; "God will render to every man according to his deeds"; and so forth. This belief could not but weaken and destroy the individual's interest in perfecting his deeds. It became a "feather bed", on which the interest in the real means of salvation fell to sleep, slept for centuries and is still for the great part sleeping. It is self-evident that a world civilization built on so false a conception of the radiance of world salvation from Golgotha has never and will never become stable and perfect. Wars and revolutions, strikes, lockouts and accidents, unemployment and poverty, illness and "crimes" in an uninterrupted succession have inevitably followed the "slumber" indicated above. They are the tribute which must be paid by mankind for fleeing from the responsibility for its own dark deeds. They are God's unconcealed intimation to mankind that its handling of the helm of civilization is clumsy. They are a present-day living witness of the full agreement between the behaviour of the Son of God and "the way, the truth, and the life".