seven years before the Christian Era) _the planets Saturn and Jupiter
farmed a conjunction in the Constellation of Pisces_, and that these
two planets, still in close position to each other, were joined by the
planet Mars in the Spring of 748. The great astronomer Kepler first
made this calculation in the year 1604, and it has been since verified
by modern calculations. To those who would object that all this
occurred seven years before the commonly accepted date of the birth of
Christ, we would say that any modern work on New Testament Chronology,
or any encyclopedia or reference work on the subject, will show that
the former calculations were several years out of the way, and that
the records of other events mentioned in the Bible, such as the
"enrollment" of the people, which brought Joseph and Mary to
Bethlehem, enable modern Biblical scholars to fix the date of the
birth of Christ at about six or seven years before the usually
accepted time. So that modern research fully corroborates the
astrological record and the Mystic traditions.

And so it would appear that the coming of the Wise Men--the Magi--was
in accordance with the astrological signs, of the interpretation of
which they were adepts and masters. When this truth is known, how
puerile and petty seems the myth of the "traveling star" of the
commonly accepted exoteric version? And the pictures of the Wise Men
being led by a moving heavenly body, traveling across the skies and at
last standing still over the cottage of Joseph, with which the Sunday
school books are filled, must be relegated to the same waste-paper
basket which contains the Bible illustrations, formerly so popular,
which picture Jehovah as a bald-headed old man with a long white
beard, clad in flowing robes designed to hide his body. Is it any
wonder that skeptics, infidels, and scoffers of the spiritual truths
have arisen in great numbers, when they have been asked to accept