he Christian Scientists
Mormons--and so on?

Y.M. You may answer your question yourself.

O.M. That list of sects is not a record of STUDIES, searchings, seekings
after light; it mainly (and sarcastically) indicates what ASSOCIATION
can do. If you know a man's nationality you can come within a split
hair of guessing the complexion of his religion: English--Protestant;
American--ditto; Spaniard, Frenchman, Irishman, Italian, South
American--Roman Catholic; Russian--Greek Catholic; Turk--Mohammedan; and
so on. And when you know the man's religious complexion, you know what
sort of religious books he reads when he wants some more light, and
what sort of books he avoids, lest by accident he get more light than he
wants. In America if you know which party-collar a voter wears, you know
what his associations are, and how he came by his politics, and which
breed of newspaper he reads to get light, and which breed he diligently
avoids, and which breed of mass-meetings he attends in order to broaden
his political knowledge, and which breed of mass-meetings he doesn't
attend, except to refute its doctrines with brickbats. We are always
hearing of people who are around SEEKING AFTER TRUTH. I have never seen
a (permanent) specimen. I think he had never lived. But I have seen
several entirely sincere people who THOUGHT they were (permanent)
Seekers after Truth. They sought diligently, persistently, carefully,
cautiously, profoundly, with perfect honesty and nicely adjusted
judgment--until they believed that without doubt or question they had
found the Truth. THAT WAS THE END OF THE SEARCH. The man spent the rest
of his life hunting up shingles wherewith to protect his Truth from the
weather. If he was seeking after political Truth he found it in one or
another of the hundred political gospels which govern men in the earth;
if he was seeking after the Only True Religion he found it in one or
another of the three thousand that are on the market. In any case, when
he found the Truth HE SOUGHT NO FURTHER; but from that day forth, with
his soldering-iron in one hand and his bludgeon in the other he tinkered
its leaks and reasoned with objectors. There have been innumerable
Temporary Seekers of Truth--have you ever heard of a permanent one? In
the very nature of man such a person is impossible. However, to drop
back to the text--training: all training is one from or another of
OUTSIDE INFLUENCE, and ASSOCIATION is the largest part of it.