There is a great demand among the people of this, and probably of every
past age, for something new in the revelations of religious thought and
knowledge. When it has not been forthcoming according to the desires
of aspiring worshippers, the imaginations of would-be teachers and
leaders have set to work to devise new schemes for the beguiling of
their fellow mortals that should hypnotize them, and hold their
allegiance to some new revelation of religion, or so-called science.
The following that some of the isms, and newly-hatched cults are
getting together is simply amazing. They seem to reach out and pervade
the world, and they are not confined to any particular grade or class
of people. The "Zionists," the "Adventists," the "Perfectionists," the
"Holy Rollers," the "Christian Scientists," the "Spiritualists," and
unnumbered other forms of belief leave a wide margin for all sorts and
kinds of people of peculiar idiosyncrasies. So much has been promised,
and so little realized in the way of comfort and satisfaction that
wails of doubt, and sorrow are undiminished. Every bit of this
"groundswell" of seeking, tortured souls is just the reaction from
slavish, blasphemous, orthodox religion.
From the perceptions of the primitive man to the understandings of the
unfolded brains of the thinking, reasoning people of today is indeed a
"far cry," and the queer vagaries, and the impossible goings on of the
reputed gods, in partnership with Nature, that were once received with
awe and profound belief, have now nearly lost their hold upon the
credulity of modern humanity.
As man has unfolded and his perceptions have enlarged, his fears of the
wrath of God, and of his possible interference with man's schemes and
purposes have given way to man's own will, and to his determination to
succeed in proving himself master of nature's forces, and of the whole
planet. He has created the "New Earth" of material comfort and
satisfaction that has been so long foretold; while from the heavens
countless multitudes of awakened, arisen souls throng all the ways of
life, proclaiming the truth of the absolute present existence of a "New
Heaven" also. This is not a perfect time, by any means, even with all
this manifestation of progressive power. Perfection in anything, in
all things, is a matter of growth, of evolution, and the whole world is
swinging along in the pathway of progress toward that goal, the
knowledge of spiritual law which is God, as fast as time can move. But
we are actually living in the enjoyment of the fulfillment of a
profound prophecy, with but little thought or realization of all it
means or portends.