of doubtful value. The
Cincinnati and Kansas City groups are offered by Dresser as typical
organizations, but they seem on the whole to be exceptional rather than
typical. The strength of the New Thought movement is not in its
organization but in its influence. "In England as in America interest
was aroused by Christian Science, then came a gradual reaction and the
establishment of independent branches of the movement." "It is
difficult," says Dresser, "to obtain information pertaining to the
influence of New Thought literature in foreign languages." The more
significant New Thought books, however, have been variously translated
and widely sold. New Thought leaders sometimes advise their disciples to
retain their old church associations and the movement has naturally
tended to merge in religious liberalism generally and to become only an
aspect of the manifold religious gropings of a troubled time.

In the Constitution and By-Laws of the New Thought Alliance, published
in 1916, the purposes of the society are "to teach the infinitude of the
Supreme One, Divinity of Man and his Infinite possibilities through the
creative power of constructive thinking and obedience to the voice of
the Indwelling Presence which is our source of Inspiration, Power,
Health and Prosperity." We discover here the same tendency toward the
deification of capital letters which we have already noted in Christian
Science.

_Its Creeds_

In 1917 the International New Thought Alliance went further than at any
other time before in the direction of a creed and set forth the
following series of affirmations: "We affirm the freedom of each soul
as to choice and as to belief, and would not, by the adoption of any
declaration of principles, limit such freedom. The essence of the New
Thought is Truth, and each individual must be loyal to the Truth he
sees. The windows of his soul must be kept open at each moment for the
higher light, and his mind must be always hospitable to each new
inspiration.

"We affirm the Good. This is supreme, universal and everlasting. Man is
made in the image of the Good, and evil and pain are but the tests and
correctives that appear when his thought does not reflect the full glory
of this image.

"We affirm health, which is man's divine inheritance. Man's body is his
holy temple. Every function of it, every cell of it, is intelligent, and
is shaped, ruled, repaired, and controlled by mind. He whose body is
full of light