All religious sects and reformers since the time of Christ have only succeeded in modifying, renovating, uplifting or debasing the eternal principles already enunciated by the Son of Man. He it was who founded the integral religion for all time, but as it permits of the most varied interpretations, innumerable and widely divergent sects have been able to graft themselves upon its eternal trunk. After Him, said Renan--who has been wrongly considered an opponent of Christ--there is nothing to be done save to develop and to fertilize, for His perfect idealism is the golden rule for a detached and virtuous life. He was the first to proclaim the kingdom of the spirit, and has established for ever the ideal of pure religion; and as His religion is a religion of _feeling_, all movements which seek to bring about the kingdom of heaven upon earth can attach themselves to His principles and to His way of salvation.
Further, any religious movement which appeals to our higher instincts must eventually contribute to the triumph of human brotherhood and to the beautifying of human life--which increases the interest of studying all attempts at revival and reform. Such a study will prevent us from being overwhelmed by the uglinesses of life, or from becoming sunk in a morass of material pleasures, and will open up ways of escape into the heavenly realms.
The true teaching of Jesus has, as a matter of fact, never yet been realised in practice. It holds up an ideal almost unattainable for mortals, like the light of a fixed star which attracts us in spite of its unthinkable distance. But we may, perhaps, by roundabout ways, ultimately succeed in giving a definite form to the Platonic dreams which ever hover around the shores of our consciousness. Among the "saints" and "initiates" who work outside the borders of accepted dogma, there are often to be found some whose originality and real spiritual worth is not generally recognised, and instead of turning away from their "visions" and "revelations," we should rather examine them with close attention. Even if our faith gains nothing, we shall be sure to pick up psychological treasures which could be turned to the profit of science.
We have been re-living, in these recent years, the "desolation" of the prophets, only that the suffering of the few in former times became with us the suffering of all. There is the same difference between the troubles of ancient Judea and those of the modern world, as there is between her miniature wars and the colossal conflict whose aftermath is with us still.