hen fondly believed to {xv} be
near at hand. It is a long-standing tragedy of history that the right
wing of a revolutionary or transforming movement must always suffer for
the unwisdom and lack of balance of those who constitute the left, or
extreme radical, wing of the movement. So it happened here. The
nobler leaders and the saner spirits were taken in the mass with those
of an opposite character, and were grouped under comprehensive labels
of reproach and scorn, such as "Antinomians," "Enthusiasts," or
"Anabaptists," and in consequence still remain largely neglected and
forgotten.

The men who initiated and guided this significant undertaking--the
exhibition in the world of what they persistently called "spiritual
religion"--were influenced by three great historic tendencies, all
three of which were harmoniously united in their type of Christianity.
They were the Mystical tendency, the Humanistic or Rational tendency,
and the distinctive Faith-tendency of the Reformation. These three
strands are indissolubly woven together in this type of so-called
spiritual Religion. It was an impressive attempt, whether completely
successful or not, to widen the sphere and scope of religion, to carry
it into _the whole of life_, to ground it in the very nature of the
human spirit, and to demonstrate that to be a man, possessed of full
life and complete health, is to be religious, to be spiritual. I
propose, as a preliminary preparation for differentiating this special
type of "spiritual religion," to undertake a study, as brief as
possible, of these three underlying and fundamental strands or
tendencies in religion which will, of course, involve some
consideration of the inherent nature of religion itself.

For my present purpose it is not necessary to study the twilight
history of religion in primitive races nor to trace its origins in the
cradle-stage of human life. Anthropologists are rendering a valuable
service in their attempts to explore the baffling region of primitive
man's mind, and they have hit upon some very suggestive clues, though
so far only tentative ones, to the psychological experiences and
attitudes which set man's feet on the {xvi} momentous religious trail.
At every stage of its long and devious history, religion has been _some
sort of life-adjustment to realities which were felt to be of supreme
importance either to the individual or to the race_, and it becomes
thus possible for the scientific obse