CHAPTER XIV.
THROUGH STORM TO PEACE.
Out of all this turmoil and stress rose a Brotherhood that had in it the promise of a fairer day.

Mr.Stead and I had become close friends--he Christian, I Atheist, burning with one common love for man, one common hatred against oppression.

And so in _Our Corner_ for February, 1888, I wrote:--"Lately there has been dawning on the minds of men far apart in questions of theology, the idea of founding a new Brotherhood, in which service of Man should take the place erstwhile given to service of God--a brotherhood in which work should be worship and love should be baptism, in which none should be regarded as alien who was willing to work for human good.

One day as I was walking towards Millbank Gaol with the Rev.S.D.Headlam, on the way to liberate a prisoner, I said to him: 'Mr.Headlam, we ought to have a new Church, which should include all who have the common ground of faith in and love for man.' And a little later I found that my friend Mr.W.T.Stead, editor of the _Pall Mall Gazette,_ had long been brooding over a similar thought, and wondering whether men 'might not be persuaded to be as earnest about making this world happy as they are over saving their souls.' The teaching of social duty, the upholding of social righteousness, the building up of a true commonwealth--such would be among the aims of the Church of the future.

Is the hope too fair for realisation?
Is the winning of such beatific vision yet once more the dream of the enthusiast?
But surely the one fact that persons so deeply differing in theological creeds as those who have been toiling for the last three months to aid and relieve the oppressed, can work in absolute harmony side by side for the one end--surely this proves that there is a bond which is stronger than our antagonisms, a unity which is deeper than the speculative theories which divide." How unconsciously I was marching towards the Theosophy which was to become the glory of my life, groping blindly in the darkness for that very brotherhood, definitely formulated on these very lines by those Elder Brothers of our race, at whose feet I was so soon to throw myself.