Abram Herbert Lewis - Spiritual Sabbathism

THE TEMPORAL AND THE ETERNAL 1
the temporal element In mythology is vast and hateful.
Much of what was permitted in prehistoric
days becomes ghastly under a fuller spiritual light.
But we can not deny a certain slender thread
of spiritual reality in mythology. When the
Aztecs believed that maize was once a god
who gave his life that men might eat him and live,
we must say that this creation-myth dimly foreshadowed
the true bread of life, which cometh down
out of heaven. When the Aztecs solemnly ate little
cakes of maize in honor of the self-slain god, the
Jesuit missionaries were in terror,
for they believed
that Satan was luring the poor savages Into blasphemy
against the holy eucharlst. But if the beloved
disciple John had been the missionary, he
would have smiled gently and said, "He was in the
world, and the world was made through him, and
the world knew him not."
The truly scientific explanation of things does not
attempt to reach beginnings. It is content to carry
the research back step by step through natural
causes, and to rest content when the limits of knowledge
are reached. And Its method Is Impersonal.
It can not work with spirits that interrupt the chain
of law. This fact has brought anxiety to the religious
mind, but it is a needless anxiety. The final
aim of science Is not metaphysical, but practical. It