In 1888 I became acquainted with the work of the Ethical Movement, which was then establishing a branch in Philadelphia. The platform of the movement appealed to me strongly, because it was completely divorced from the supernatural. It emphasized the deed, and ignored the creed; or rather, it believed in the creed of the deed. I invited the leaders of this movement to address my society, and to explain to us in detail the philosophy of Ethical Culture. All five of the lecturers of the Ethical Societies in America successively occupied my platform in St. George's hall, and I in return occupied their platforms in New York, Chicago, St. Louis and Philadelphia. This interchange of platforms resulted in my accepting a call from the New York Society for Ethical Culture, and three years later from the Chicago Society, which latter I served as its lecturer for five years. The founder of the Ethical Societies was Dr. Felix Adler, the son of a Jewish Rabbi, who was expected to succeed his father as the spiritual head of the fashionable and wealthy Fifth Avenue synagogue in New York City. But all the other members of the fraternity of lecturers were either ex-ministers of the Christian church, like myself, or had, at one time, studied for the Christian ministry. In the beginning, the movement was consistently and fearlessly Rationalistic. Adler had a lecture on Atheism in which he boldly exposed the weakness of the theistic position. This lecture was printed and widely circulated. The other lecturers also openly antagonized the God idea as robbing the idea of the Good of the attention and love of man. The churches feared the Ethical Movement in those days, and denounced it as an irreligious institution.