Under every popular craze there is always a truth—a truth for which the world is ready. Some picturesque fancy catches the popular attention. It is the bait by which Providence is luring on the masses to the consideration of Truth. The evolution of popular intelligence is along the line of feeling, thought, conviction. The many feel a truth which is bearing upon them in the social and moral atmosphere, and welcome any incarnation of it, however grotesque. The more highly developed and sensitive minds receive the Truth spiritually, and look with kindly indulgence on the picturesque object-teaching, by which the multitude must be led to its reception. These delusions run their course, from a mild indulgence, to such an absurd extreme that the popular mind reacts, laughs at it, drops it; and yet, in spite of itself, has taken in a Truth which ever afterward is a part of its Life.
There is today a Boston craze called the Mind-cure. What is the Truth which is underneath it? What is the eternal Principle which is pressing upon the popular attention, through this selfish interest—health?
