individual self into the All-Self is so remote as to give him no concern. But the mental scientist, as near as we can express his notion, rejects the idea of spiritual embodiment, regards his personality as purely mortal and his soul one with indivisible God, now and forever. Personality is not an attribute of his soul; spirit or astral body he does not understand as ever existing to preserve individuality after physical dissolution—in this differing as much from the theosophist as from the Spiritualist.

When these modernized Buddhists, Spiritualists and Christians, and liberal thinkers, generally, unite—as they easily may, for they have now no irreconcilable disagreement—they will form a powerful body of thinking and progressive religionists. And their religion will be a better Buddhism than Buddha taught, a broader Christianity than Christ revealed, a deeper Spiritual philosophy than Swedenborg or Davis heralded. Of course we welcome the opening day and its new light and promise, for the old theologies are wearisome emptiness and humbug, and the new isms cold and repellant or insufficient in their testimony. We do not expect that a new church will arise and a new sectarianism follow. But a new conception of life, its origin, purpose and destiny may come to lift the people of America out of the old religious rut. And in consequence the old depressing question, “Is life worth living?” answered once by Buddha’s No, may be answered anew by Humanity’s Yes.

The observations of this writer refer more to certain progressive and restless classes in this Northeastern region than to the United States generally. The churches are not diminishing in the number of their members, but steadily gaining in numbers and also in liberality. The new religion and philosophy of the future will be luminous, scientific and philanthropic—not a conglomeration of vague speculations. True, reverential religion is not a dreamy or speculative impulse, but an earnest love of mankind and of duty, which does not waste itself in unprofitable speculations, but eagerly pursues the positive knowledge of this life and the next, which gives practical wisdom and diffuses happiness. All systems of religion talk about love and recommend it, but their followers seldom realize it in their lives. The religion of the future will realize it. Apropos to this subject, Col. Van Horn, of the Kansas City Journal, says:

“And as another result of missionary work, there are now in the United States, in England and on the continent, missionaries of Buddhism sent by the schools of the East, to convert us to the philosophy of Gautama. This may sound startling to the general reader, but it is not only a fact, but they have made converts and are making them with a rapidity that is remarkable, making more from us than we are from them. And they are from the very best and brightest intellects among us—not the illiterate, but the most cultured of the educated classes. It will not do to suppress this fact in the discussion—for this is an age when facts must be looked in the face.”