.

Tennyson also came to the same conclusion, and gives kindly warning:--

"O thou who after toil and storm
May'st seem to have reached a purer air,
Whose faith has centred everywhere,
Nor cares to fix itself to form.
Leave thou thy sister when she prays
Her early heaven, her happy views,
Nor thou with shadowed hint confuse
A life that leads melodious days."

And thus these two great minds have left us a lesson of wisdom which we
shall do well to profit by. Let us see how it applies more particularly
to our own case.

The true presentment of the Higher Thought contains no "negative
propagandism." It is everywhere ranged on the side of the Affirmative,
and its great object is to extirpate the canker which gnaws at the root
of every life that endeavours to centre itself upon the Negative. Its
purpose is constructive and not destructive. But we often find people
labouring under a very erroneous impression as to the nature and scope
of the movement, and thus not only themselves deterred from
investigating it, but also deterring others from doing so. Sometimes
this results from the subject having been presented to them unwisely--in
a way needlessly repugnant to the particular form of religious ideas to
which they are accustomed; but more often it results from their
prejudging the whole matter, and making up their minds that the movement
is opposed to their ideas of religion, without being at the pains to
inquire what its principles really are. In either case a few words on
the attitude of the New Thought towards the current forms of religious
opinion may not be out of place.

The first consideration in every concern is, What is the object aimed
at? The end determines the means to be employed, and if the nature of
the end be clearly kept in view, then no objectless complications will
be introduced into the means. All this seems too obvious to be stated,
but it is just the failure to realise this simple truth that has given
rise to the whole body of _odium theologicum_, with all the persecutions
and massacres and martyrdoms which disgrace the pages of history, making
so many of them a record of nothing but ferocity and stupidity. Let us
hope for a better record in the future; and if we are to get it, it will
be by the adoption of the simple principle here stated.

In our own country alone the varieties of churches and sects form a
lengthy catalogue, but in every one of them the