f modern science. The God of
New Thought is an immanent God, never clearly defined; indeed it is
possible to argue from many representative utterances that the God of
New Thought is not personal at all but rather an all-pervading force, a
driving energy which we may discover both in ourselves and in the world
about us and to which conforming we are, with little effort on our own
part, carried as upon some strong, compelling tide.

The main business of life, therefore, is to discover the direction of
these forces and the laws of their operation, and as far as possible to
conform both character and conduct, through obedience to such laws, into
a triumphant partnership with such a master force--a kind of conquering
self-surrender to a power not ourselves and yet which we may not know
apart from ourselves, which makes not supremely for righteousness
(righteousness is a word not often discovered in New Thought literature)
but for harmony, happiness and success.

_It Greatly Modifies Orthodox Theology_

Such a general statement as this must, of course, be qualified. Even the
most devout whose faith and character have alike been fashioned by an
inherited religion in which the personality of God is centrally
affirmed, find their own thought about God fluctuating. So great a thing
as faith in God must always have its lights and shadows and its changing
moods. In our moments of deeper devotion and surer insight the sense of
a supreme personal reality and a vital communion therewith is most clear
and strong; then there is some ebbing of our own powers of apprehension
and we seem to be in the grip of impersonal law and at the mercy of
forces which have no concern for our own personal values. New Thought
naturally reflects all this and adds thereto uncertainties of its own.
There are passages enough in New Thought literature which recognize the
personality of God just as there are passages enough which seem to
reduce Him to power and principle and the secret of such discrepancies
is not perhaps in the creeds of New Thought, but in the varying
attitudes of its priests and prophets. One may say, then, that the God
of New Thought is always immanent, always force and law and sometimes
intimate and personal. However this force may be defined, it carries
those who commit themselves to it toward definite goals of well-being.
The New Thought of to-day reflects the optimistic note of the scientific
evolution of a generation ago. It is no