The Baptist is assured that his mode of baptism—­complete immersion—­is the only one that satisfies the demands of heaven, and the more rigorous members of the sect refuse communion with those who have not obeyed, as they see the command.  The members of the “Christian” Church—­as the disciples of Alexander Campbell term themselves—­while they assent that they are tied to no creed except the New Testament, demand immersion as a prerequisite to membership in their body.  The Methodist, Congregationalist, Presbyterian, Nazarene, and many others, are “evangelical” in their belief, as is a large portion of the Church of England, and its American offshoot, both of which are known as the Episcopal Church.  Another portion, however, of this church is known as “ritualistic,” and the two branches in England recently became so involved in a heated discussion as to the propriety of certain of their bishops partaking in official deliberations with ministers of the other, but outside, evangelistic churches, that for a time it seemed as if the whole Episcopal Church would be disrupted by the fierceness and anger gendered in the differences of opinion.

To my own mind, all this worry was much ado about nothing.  Each man’s brain and conscience must guide him in matters of this kind, and the worry, fret, stew, evolved out of the matter, seem to me a proof that real religion had little to do with it.

Recently one good brother came to me with tears in his voice, if not in his eyes, worried seriously as to my own religious belief because I had asserted in a public address that I believed the earnest prayer of a good Indian woman reached the ear of God as surely as did my own prayers, or those of any man, woman, minister, or priest living.  To him the only effective prayers were “evangelical” prayers—­whatever that may mean—­and he was deeply distressed and fearfully worried because I could not see eye to eye with him in this matter.  And a dear, good woman, who heard a subsequent discussion of the subject, was so worried over my attitude that she felt impelled to assure me when I left that “she would pray for me.”

I have friends who are zealous Roman Catholics, and a number of them are praying that I may soon enter the folds of “Mother Church,” and yet my Unitarian and Universalist friends wonder why I retain my membership in any “orthodox” church.  On the other hand, my New Thought friends declare that I belong to them by the spirit of the messages I have given to the world.  Then, too, my Theosophist friends—­and I have many—­present to me, with a force I do not attempt to controvert, the doctrine of the Universal Brotherhood of Mankind, and urge upon me acceptance of the comforting and helpful doctrine, to them, of Reincarnation.