ht; in Boston, Higher Life; in New York the little group was for a
time known as the Circle of Divine Ministry; in the west the movement
was known as Divine Science or Practical Christianity. There were groups
also which called themselves the Home of Truth or the Society of Silent
Unity.

_New Thought Takes Form_

New Thought, as has been said, lacks the definite direction which
Christian Science has always had. Its organizations have grown up
quietly, more or less irregularly and have had always a shifting
character. "The first New Thought Society with a regular leader and
organization in Boston was the Church of the Higher Life established in
1894."[62] The Metaphysical Club was an outgrowth of the New Thought
group in Boston. Dresser gives a list of the original members, chiefly
significant through the presence among them of some of Quimby's
disciples and others whose books have since held a high place in New
Thought literature. There were manifest connections between the
movement and liberal (particularly Unitarian) theology.

[Footnote 62: All citations in this section are from Dresser's "History
of New Thought," unless otherwise indicated.]

The first New Thought convention was held in Boston in 1899 (there had
been earlier conventions of the Disciples of Divine Science--a related
movement--in western cities) and the second in New York City in 1900.
The New York convention was the first to make any general statement of
the "purposes" of the League. We find on the New York program one Swami
Abhedananda, lecturer on the Vedanta philosophy. Here is an early
indication of the return of Eastern religions upon the West which is
also one of the marked characteristics of the religious development of
our time. We do not need to follow through in detail the list of
successive conventions with their topics and their speakers. The group
is not so large but that the same names reappear. There are marked
attempts in the earlier conventions to associate leaders in recognized
schools of philosophy and theology with the movement. One does not
discover this tendency in the later convention lists.

The local groups throughout the country have had varying fortunes. They
have from time to time changed their names and naturally their leaders.
The west has responded perhaps more strongly than the Atlantic seaboard.
The movement is particularly strong on the Pacific Coast. There are no
available statistics and generalizations are