related themes. In general they dispense with the sacraments; they have
no ecclesiastical orders and hardly anything corresponding to the
Catholic priesthood or the Protestant ministry, though the Christian
Science reader has a recognized official place. They meet in
conferences; they depend largely upon addresses by their leaders.
Spiritualistic movements organize themselves around seances. They use
such halls as may be rented, hotels, their own homes; they have not
generally buildings of their own save the Christian Science temples
which are distinctive for dignity of architecture and beauty of
appointment in almost every large city.

_General Conclusions; the Limitations of the Writer's Method_

It remains only to sum up in a most general way the conclusions to which
this study may lead. There has been a process of criticism and appraisal
throughout the whole book, but there should be room at the end for some
general statements.

The writer recognizes the limitations of his method; he has studied
faithfully the literature of the cults, but any religion is always a
vast deal more than its literature. The history of the cults does not
fully tell their story nor does any mere observation of their worship
admit the observer to the inner religious life of the worshippers. Life
always subdues its materials to its own ends, reproduces them in terms
of its own realities; there are endless individual variations, but the
outcome is massively uniform. Religion does the same thing. Its
materials are faiths and obediences and persuasions of truth and
expectations of happier states, but its ultimate creations are character
and experience, and the results in life of widely different religions
are unexpectedly similar. Both theoretically and practically the truer
understanding or the finer faith and, particularly, the higher ethical
standards should produce the richer life and this is actually so. But
real goodness is everywhere much the same; there are calendared saints
for every faith.

There is an abundant testimony in the literature of the cults to rare
goodnesses and abundant devotion, and observation confirms these
testimonies. Something of this is doubtless due to their environment.
The Western cults themselves and the Eastern cults in the West are
contained in and influenced by the whole outcome of historic
Christianity and they naturally share its spirit. If the churches need
to remember this as they appraise the cul