Let us see how that immediate future should be recognised in its characteristics, and thus prepared for. First of all we must understand the words spoken long ago under the inspiration of the coming Bodhisattva, that the Theosophical Society was to be “the corner-stone of the future religion of humanity.” Now every sub-race has a special religion, as it were. The religion of the fifth sub-race is Christianity. What is the future religion of humanity in this sense? It differs from all that have gone before. It is no longer an exclusive and separatist faith, but a recognition that in every religion the same truths are found; that there is only one true religion, the Divine Wisdom; and that every separate religion is true just so far as it incorporates the main teachings of that Divine Wisdom. The one supreme religion is the Knowledge of God; to that everything else is subsidiary. Just in so far as any special religion puts within the reach of its followers the means for rising to that supreme knowledge, in so far is that religion worthy of its place. And when that supreme test is not thoroughly answered—when dogmas, and ceremonies, and rites become more important than this inner truth of the gaining of individual knowledge of the Supreme—then the religion becomes narrower, weaker, unspiritual, until a time comes when either the religion must die or a new impulse must be poured into it to bring it back to its original position, a channel for the knowledge of God. Now, in the past many religions have done their work and passed away, and we come to the present time, when certain great religions are living. And when the great new spiritual impulse came, it was not charged with the building of a new religion, but with the vitalising of those great existing religions, to make them realise their underlying foundation; they were vivified in order to help them to rise to a more spiritual and mystic interpretation of their teachings; and when that was done, they were to be blended together into a brotherhood of Religions, so that all should recognise the Divine Wisdom as their root. That was the first work of the Theosophical Society. It was done all over the world. See how in India Hindūism was revived; in Ceylon, Buddhism. Ask the ordinary missionary who comes over here, who is not generally very broad-minded, and he will tell you that the great opponent of Christianity in the East is the Theosophical Society. Then, if you press him and ask, “But are Theosophists antagonistic to you?” “No,” he will say, “but they strengthen the other religions, and thus prevent our making converts.” And that is true. It is not our business to convert people from one religion to another, but to try to make every one realise the splendour of his own religion. Naturally, in India—except in Travancore, where there has been a Christian Roman Catholic colony from the very early centuries of the Church—Christianity is an alien