{"content":[{"text":"Christ-Mass: \n Catholic-Paganism \n \"Learn not the way of the heathen...for the customs \n of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest... \n they deck it with silver and gold\" -- Jeremiah 10:2-4","bbox":{"left":0.231413,"top":0.015396,"width":0.480158,"height":0.137053}},{"text":"THE teachingsof Scripture are directed toward developing an intense desire for that which is better, more \n powerful, stronger, holier, closer to divine principle and standard; toward the arousing of godly and spiritual \n yearnings that find their satisfaction and peace only in a constant upward effort toward conformity with the \n Perfect Example: off with the Old Man, on with the New. \n The glorious struggle of life must not be viewed as an unhappy, burdensome,stoical battle against what we \n really desire. The secret is rather a gradual, joyful education and training of the inclinations toward BETTER \n things; an opening up of out natural, dark, ignorant minds to divine Love and Light and Holiness-- \n \"Yet show I unto you a MORE EXCELLENT WAY\" (1 Cor. 12:31). \n \"Overcome evil WITH GOOD\" (Rom. 12:21). \n God says to us, \"Here is a BETTER, a more Way.\" The life in the Truth is a GROWTH: a movement ever \n forward and upward; a progressive advancement toward greater light and fuller understanding. God desires \n us to want to get as close as possible to Him, and as far as possible away from the customs of the world: \n especially the superstitious and \"religious\" customs. If we are not deeply moved with this desire, there is little \n hope for us attaining the Kingdom. \n Baptism is only the first step of a long journey, a bare beginning: to STOP at that point is suicide. We can all \n surely call to mind passages which emphasize this essential divine principle of growth and development and \n transformation-- \n \"Be ye TRANSFORMED by the RENEWING of your mind\" (Rom. 12:2). \n \"GROW in grace and knowledge” (2 Pet. 3:18). \n \"Put on the New Man which is renewed in KNOWLEDGE\" (Col. 3:10). \n \"GROW UP unto him in ALL things\" (Eph. 4:15). \n \"Every man that hath this Hope in him PURIFIETH himself\" \n (1 John 3:3). \n And so the man of God, through constant application to the enlightening Word, is gradually molded from \n weakness and ignorance to greater and greater strength of purpose, character and spiritual perception. We dare \n not remain simple \"babes.\" \n Let us approach this subject from this point of view: eager to learn, to ascertain the true FACTS, to consider \n the holy spiritual principles which bear upon those facts, to put away anything unclean or even doubtful--that \n we may in all things better pursue the good, acceptable, perfect will of our holy God. \n MOST HOLIDAYS ARE PAGAN-CATHOLIC \n ONE thing immediately strikes us forcibly, which perhaps we may have never noticed before. That is, that \n most of the present historical anniversaries that the world keeps are ghostly hangovers from the time when the Mother of \n Harlets held undisputed sway over \"times and seasons,\" and the \"bodies and souls of men.\" AND that many of them \n were borrowed by the Catholic Church from paganism. \n Many, of course, are now only unfamiliar names to most of us: Candlemass, Epiphany, St. Stephen’s, \n Michaelmass, All Saints, Whitsuntide, Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, Plough Monday, Twelfth Night, and \n scores of others. But some still remain prominent, as grim relics of an age of gross and incredible \n superstitution. \n \"SAINT\" VALENTINE, for instance, was a romantically-minded bishop of the third century, martyred (at \n least according to legend) for performing \"christian\" marriages against the laws of the Emperor.","bbox":{"left":0.029616,"top":0.170034,"width":0.878582,"height":0.728124}}],"images_bbox":[{"left":0.019608,"top":0.016414,"width":0.000408,"height":0.000316}],"images_bbox_not_text_overlap":[{"left":0.019608,"top":0.016414,"width":0.000408,"height":0.000316}]}