ew Thought considers only the user. To "Know Thyself" is all there is
of it.

When a creator of New Thought goes into the business of retailing his
product, he often forgets to live it, and soon is transformed into a
dealer in Secondhand Thought.

That is the way all purveyors in secondhand revelation begin. In their
anxiety to succeed, they call in the police. The blessing that is
compulsory is not wholly good, and any system of morals which has to be
forced on us is immoral. New Thought is free thought. Its penalty is
responsibility. You either have to live it, or else lose it. Its reward
is Freedom.

* * * * *

It was only a little more than a hundred years before the time of
Hypatia that the Roman Empire became Christian. When Constantine
embraced Christianity, all of his loyal subjects were from that moment
Christians--Christians by edict, but Pagans by character, for the
natures of men can not be changed by the passing of a resolution. From
that time every Pagan temple became a Christian church, and every Pagan
priest a Christian preacher.

Alexandria was under the rule of a Roman Prefect, or Governor. It had
been the policy of Rome to exercise great tolerance in religious
matters. There was a State Religion, to be sure, but it was for the
nobility or those who helped make the State possible. To look after the
thinking of the plain people was quite superfluous--they were allowed
their vagaries.

The Empire had been bold, brazen, cruel, coercive in its lust for power,
but people who paid were reasonably safe. And now the Church was coming
into competition with the State and endeavoring to reduce spoliation to
a system.

To keep the people down and under by mental suppression--by the engine
of superstition--were cheaper and more effective than to employ force or
resort to the old-time methods of shows, spectacles, pensions and costly
diversions. When the Church took on the functions of the State, and
sought to substitute the gentle Christ for Caesar, she had to recast the
teachings of Christ. Then for the first time coercion and love dwelt
side by side. "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared
for the devil and his angels," and like passages were slipped into the
Scriptures as matters of wise expediency. This was continued for many
hundred years, and was considered quite proper and legitimate. It was
slavery under a more subtle form.

The Bishop of Alexandr