From Bondage to Liberty in Religion Part 8

What do we know about Jesus anyway? He never wrote a line that we have any record of, except a few words in the sand when the Jews brought a sinful woman before him to accuse her; and we know not what these words were. We have no record that he ever authorized any one else to write anything for, or about him. We have three short biographies of him that were written anywhere from fifty to eighty years after his death, the exact date of neither being known. The authors of two of these--Mark and Luke--it is admitted were not Apostles; and there is no evidence that either of them ever knew Jesus in his lifetime. It is admitted that each of them got all his information from another, and that one of them got his information from a person--Paul--who himself never knew Jesus in the flesh. It is admitted that the other--Matthew--as we now have it, is not the original writing of the Apostle of that name; that the original is entirely lost, and no one knows what additions or eliminations it underwent in its translation and transcription into another language. Years later a fourth biography appeared by an unknown author,--tradition being the only evidence that it was written by the Apostle John--so entirely different in its general make-up and contents, that but for the _name_ of its subject and a very few pa.s.sages in it, no one would ever take it to be about the same person that formed the subject of the other three.

When these four are taken together, and all repet.i.tions and duplications are eliminated, it would leave us with a small pamphlet of some sixty or seventy pages as our only record of this most remarkable character of all history. None of the epistolary writings throw any light on the life, doings, sayings or personality of Jesus. They only deal with deductions drawn from or based upon it. When we add to this the fact that at least fifty years had elapsed, after the events described had happened, before a line of it--at least in its present form--was written; and that in an age when few people could write and no accurate records were preserved, and when those that did then write, wrote only from memory or tradition; and when we further consider the varying and often very different accounts given by the different writers of the events they describe, differences in both the doings and sayings of Jesus, altho these are mostly only matters of minor detail, yet we become more and more convinced that we have no means of knowing for certain just what Jesus did; nor whether or not he uttered the exact words that the writers put into his mouth. Compare today the memory of any individual as to the exact details of some event, even that he personally witnessed, fifty years ago; especially as to the exact words used on any particular occasion, and we will have more than a fair example of the imperfection of human memory. Add to this the fact that this was in a very superst.i.tious age, when every wonder was translated into a supernatural miracle, and our perplexity only becomes the greater. The doctrine of infallible guidance by divine inspiration is out of the question. If there was no other evidence against such an idea, the internal contents of these books themselves would forever destroy it.

Then, what do we _know_ about Jesus? Very little. I do not accuse these writers of any deliberate misrepresentation, conscious fraud or forgery. They undoubtedly wrote what they honestly and sincerely believed at the time to be the truth. But they wrote simply as fallible men like ourselves. Their means of information in many cases was doubtless very meager and uncertain. They doubtless did the best they could under the circ.u.mstances. They wrote the truth as they understood it to be truth, just as any other historian or biographer would do today.

And what they wrote is all we know. It is the only basis we have upon which we can form any judgment as to who or what Jesus of Nazareth was.

What Paul may have thought of him, and the system of theology he built thereon, is of but little value. What the Church Fathers may have thought, in the light of the age in which they lived, and their own standard of intellectual attainments, is of less. We have got to fall back upon the four gospels, and interpret them, not in the light of the superst.i.tious age in which they were written; not a.s.suming them to be exact truth; for in view of the fact of their own contradictions of each other on material and vital points this is impossible; but in the full light of this age of science and exact knowledge; of a more highly developed intelligence, and a deeper and more accurate reasoning power.

With these records as a basis, or starting point, we must work out the problem for ourselves: Who and what was Jesus?

First, he was a Jew,--born, lived and died a Jew. There is no evidence that he ever rejected, or abrogated the religion of his fathers. That he tried to reform it, inject into it a deeper spiritual life, a more rational and higher ethical standard, will more fully appear as we proceed. He came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it,--not by dying on the cross, for the law nowhere says, or even intimates, anything about anybody dying on a cross or anywhere else. He came to fulfill it by living up to its full ethical and spiritual import, and teaching others to do so. "Moses had summed up the law in ten commandments, the Pharisees of the time of Jesus had made of these ten thousand--to be exact, six hundred and thirteen--and Jesus reduced them to two,"--and kept them. This is how he fulfilled the law.

Next, Jesus was the son of Joseph and Mary by the same process of natural generation by which all other human beings come into the world.

Paul, the earliest and most elaborate writer of the New Testament, nowhere gives us the remotest hint that he had ever heard of any such a thing as the supernatural birth; and it is wholly unthinkable that if such had been the truth he should have been ignorant of it; or that if it sustained such a vital relation to the Christian system of religion to which he devoted his whole life, he should never in the remotest manner refer to it.

Mark's gospel, written to the best of our knowledge about fifty years after the death of Jesus, nowhere refers to it. As we have already seen, we do not know what the Apostle Matthew may have written, as we do not have his original writing at all. The early Ebionite copies of the Greek translation and transcription did not contain the first two chapters, and consequently no reference to the supernatural birth. We are left to fall back on Luke and we will have to examine his story a little in detail. In all of its details, including the genealogy, it is quite different from that in Matthew. Luke alone mentions the visit to Jerusalem when Jesus was twelve years old, and in which he was missed from the company when they started on the return home. When Joseph and Mary found him in the temple, she is quoted as saying, "Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing." Now, if Jesus was _not_ really the son of Joseph, but of the Holy Ghost, his mother certainly knew it; and if so her statement, "_thy father_ and I have sought thee sorrowing," was not only a deliberate untruth; but if Jesus was G.o.d, he also knew it was an untruth. Another inconsistency in the story is, that if Jesus was thus the son of the Holy Ghost, and therefore G.o.d, and his mother knew it, why should she worry about his being missing from the caravan?

Couldn't G.o.d take care of himself and find his way back to Nazareth at any time he wished to go? On another occasion, mentioned by all the synoptics, when Jesus was teaching, his mother and brethren are reported as calling for him, evidently for the purpose of restraining him in his work, or persuading him to desist,--and this is the interpretation that has been most generally given to these pa.s.sages, and the answer which Jesus gave supports it as correct,--such a course is entirely inconsistent with any conception that his mother at the time _knew_ him to be the supernaturally born Son of G.o.d.

Turning now to the Fourth Gospel, we have not only an entirely different character, but an entirely different philosophy as to his life and mission. Not a word is said or anywhere hinted about a divine birth. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with G.o.d, and the Word was G.o.d.... and the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us."

To state it in the simplest words I can command, the theory of the Fourth Gospel is that of the old Alexandrian philosophy of the incarnation of the Divine Logos, or Word, or message from G.o.d, in human flesh, applied to Jesus of Nazareth. His pure and simple manhood is recognized, into which, in some mystical manner, nowhere explained, the Divine Logos, or Word, or Life, or G.o.d Himself, entered into _the man_ Jesus, whereby he became the Son of G.o.d and the Messiah,--and not by the process of miraculous generation in the flesh. The old Ebionite doctrine was that this Divine Logos, or Word, or Spirit of G.o.d entered Jesus at his baptism, and that he thereby became the Messiah, distinctively "the Son of G.o.d" by divine selection, and not by supernatural generation.

There is no evidence that his disciples during his lifetime ever had the slightest conception that he had a supernatural birth. When Philip tells Nathaniel that he has found the Messiah of whom Moses and the prophets wrote, he also tells him that this Messiah is "Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph."

Even after the death of Jesus the disciples seem to have had no knowledge of any supernatural birth. The two on their way to Emmaus, after the crucifixion, express their disappointment: "We hoped that it was he who should redeem Israel." No such expression of disappointment can possibly be reconciled with any thought that this Jesus who had so recently been crucified was the "eternal Son of G.o.d" incarnated in human flesh. On the day of Pentecost Peter speaks of him in no higher terms than "A man approved of G.o.d."

If Jesus was supernaturally born, as a matter of course his mother knew it all the time; yet during the whole life of Jesus she is nowhere mentioned as giving the slightest intimation of it; but on the contrary all the record we have of anything she did do or say would naturally lead to just the opposite conclusion. Of course no one else knew anything about it. Taking it naturally for granted, that at least at the beginning, his disciples knew nothing of it, if they ever learned it afterwards, there must have been some special time, condition or circ.u.mstance under which they came into possession of these remarkable facts. Yet, there is not a hint in the New Testament about any such time, place, circ.u.mstance or incident.

How then did the idea of a supernatural birth and the deification of Jesus come about, if it was not a real fact? Very simply and quite naturally. Any one acquainted with ancient history knows that in that age of the world, and for centuries before, it had been almost a universal custom, especially in Greece and the Roman empire, to attribute some supernatural origin to, and deify their heroes,--sometimes while they were yet alive, but most certainly after their death. Just so, after the death of this remarkable man, and his cult continued to gather adherents, time and distance lent perspective, and he naturally grew larger and greater in their estimation, until, naturally and inevitably, permeated by the universal thought of the age in which they lived, they gradually came to look more and more upon their great master as being something more than ordinarily human, until this thought gradually ripened into his deification; and of course to be consistent with this he _must have been_, like all other deified heroes, supernaturally born. And out of this the legend of Bethlehem, in both its forms, in Matthew and Luke, somehow grew,--n.o.body knows exactly how. It is just like many other myths of past ages. The first we know of them they are full grown and complete; yet, like all other things, they _must_ have had a natural and gradual growth.

As to where he was born we do not know, nor is it material. It is by far the most probable that he was born at Nazareth where his parents lived. The legend that he was born at Bethlehem was doubtless a pure conjecture, made necessary by those who accepted him as the Messiah of Hebrew prophecy, to make it correspond with the prophetic declaration that the Messiah should be born at Bethlehem of Judah. This fully accounts for the Bethlehem story as the place of his birth. The fact is they are all purely conjectural, made to fit into some preconceived notion of his personality or character. We have no reliable account whatever of his birth or early life.

We now come to consider the man,--yes, the man Christ Jesus. We have already said he was a Jew and lived and died one, with apparently no thought or purpose other than to reform and correct the abuses into which his people had lapsed, and revive and intensify the deep spiritual and ethical meaning of religion. Born of the most intensely religious race of all antiquity, he was the most intensely religious of his race. He perceived a new conception of G.o.d, not as the arbitrary ruler and vindictive judge of his people, but as the universal Father of all men, not anthropomorphic, but Infinite Spirit, whose greatest attributes were love, justice, mercy and truth, expressed in the great term Fatherhood; and that all men are children of the great Father, and therefore brothers. This expresses his fundamental philosophy and working basis of life. Upon it he undertook to build up and establish, not a new system of religion, but a new order of life. The central idea in this was man's direct relations.h.i.+p to G.o.d. In his own life he embodied a perfect example of his ideal. He thus became not G.o.d incarnate bodily in human flesh, nor the Son of G.o.d in any _different_ sense than all are sons of G.o.d--except perhaps in degree and not in kind--but the most complete reflection and interpretation of G.o.d in terms of human life that the world had ever known before his time, has ever known since, or perhaps ever will know. But this last statement is saying more than any man can know for certain. We know not what G.o.d may yet have to reveal to mankind, nor how He will reveal it.

His course of life and teaching naturally brought him into direct conflict with the prevailing order of his time. We need not discuss that in detail. It soon led to a violent and tragic death, before he had fairly begun his work. We cannot form any guess what _might have been_ the result if he had been permitted to live out a normal life and continue his teaching. He only met the same fate that many prophets before him had met, and many more since. If he should appear today here in America and pursue the same course toward public inst.i.tutions and popular beliefs and practices, he would meet with a reception little different from what he met in Palestine nineteen hundred years ago. He might not indeed be crucified on a cross; but he would stand a good chance to be cast into jail and sent to a penitentiary for a term of years for sedition and attempting to interfere with the established order. And no persons would be more active in his prosecution than some of the modern Pharisees who occupy high places in that great inst.i.tution that bears his name. If he had appeared in Europe some four or five hundred years ago, he would have been almost dead certain to meet the same fate of John Huss, Savonarola and Giordano Bruno. But now, as then, the poor, down-trodden and oppressed would doubtless hear him gladly.

There is no reliable evidence that he ever claimed to be the Messiah of Hebrew prophecy. He is quoted on several occasions as having accepted the appellation when applied to him by others. On one occasion only is he quoted as having affirmatively declared himself the Messiah; and that was to the woman of Samaria, and the whole circ.u.mstance of it renders it incredible. It would certainly be a very unusual course to take, for the Jewish Messiah to come and announce himself as such, not to the Jews themselves, but to a very obscure, not to say disreputable woman, of the most despised race known to the Jews.

It was however quite natural that, after his followers had universally accepted him as the Jewish Messiah, they should recall some occasional remarks that he may have made, upon which to base this belief; and that these remarks would finally take more concrete form, until when written, fifty to a hundred years after they were uttered, they were perhaps entirely different from anything Jesus ever said. As a matter of fact there is nothing in the life or teachings of Jesus, as recorded in the New Testament, that at all corresponds to the personality or character of the Messiah of Hebrew prophecy. And may I add here, that the Messiah of Hebrew prophecy, for whose coming the Jews were looking at that time, and for which most of the Jews have been looking ever since, is but a fiction and a myth, born entirely out of the patriotic devotion and fervid poetic fancy of the Old Hebrew prophets? In the days of Israel's adversity, when all the really unquestioned Messianic prophecies were uttered, the mind of prophet and people turned back to the golden days of David's glorious reign; and in their intense patriotism and unfaltering faith in Jehovah, they hoped and _believed_ that he would some day raise up a King of the line and house of David that would restore the ancient glory of Israel; and so they prophesied--"the wish being father to the thought." And this is all there is to Old Testament Messianic prophecy. And a great many of the most intelligent Jews of the Reformed School of today are beginning to think the same.

But if there was ever a true prophet of G.o.d, a man in whom the G.o.d-life in human form was truly manifest, a man supremely divine,--not by miraculous generation, but by spiritual union with G.o.d, whereby G.o.d indeed became manifest in human flesh,--that man was Jesus of Nazareth.

And as such he becomes the eternal example for all mankind after him.

As a man he justly commands the highest homage that the world can give to man. But make him G.o.d, and the chain that connects him with man is at once broken. If Jesus was G.o.d, and therefore incapable of temptation or sin, the temptation and triumph in the wilderness becomes a farce, without any meaning to mankind whatever. But as a mortal man struggling with and overcoming the strongest temptations of life, it has infinite significance to all mankind. If he overcame as a man, so may I. As a G.o.d, the sweat of Gethsemane and the agony of the Cross are but mockery--not equal to a single pin-p.r.i.c.k in a whole mortal life. But as a man, struggling with the last enemy, with eternity before him, a means of escape at hand, but deliberately devoting his life and his all in the most excruciatingly torturous manner known to human ingenuity in cruelty, it becomes a spectacle to command the awe and admiration of angels.

Jesus is indeed the savior of the world, not by having _redeemed_ mankind with the purchase-price of his own blood; but by his life and words in teaching men how to live, and by his death how to die, if necessary, for the right.

I know of no more fitting close to this my view of Jesus, than a quotation from Ernest Renan's Apostrophe to Jesus. Ernest Renan was called an infidel because he abandoned the church of his fathers, and with it the deity of Jesus. But he found in Jesus the supreme model of all human life, the most perfect and complete reflection of the G.o.d-life in mankind the world has ever known.

"Repose now in thy glory, n.o.ble founder. Thy work is finished; thy divinity is established. Fear no more to see the edifice of thy labors fall by any fault. Henceforth beyond the reach of frailty, thou shalt witness from the heights of divine peace the infinite results of thy acts. At the price of a few hours of suffering, which did not even reach thy grand soul, thou hast brought the most complete immortality.

For thousands of years the world will depend on thee: Banner of our contests, thou shalt be the standard about which the hottest battle will be given. A thousand times more alive, a thousand times more beloved, since thy death than during thy pa.s.sage here below, thou shalt become the cornerstone of humanity so entirely, that to tear thy name from this world would be to rend it to its foundation. Complete conqueror of death, take possession of thy kingdom, whither shall follow thee, by the royal road which thou hast traced, ages of followers."

LIBERTY

_MY NEW CHURCH RELATIONS AND SECOND CALL TO THE MINISTRY_

I have thus outlined, perhaps at greater length than was necessary, the processes thru which I pa.s.sed in my religious life from my early childhood to mature middle life. I have shown how I was born in the bondage of orthodoxy; and how I was ultimately driven to abandon, not only it, but religion altogether. I then outlined the processes thru which I pa.s.sed that led me to a satisfactory settlement in my own mind, of the problems embraced in the general and comprehensive term Religion, which I have tried to describe as "My New Confession of Faith." From the time I left the church and ministry until I reached the conclusions herein outlined, was about fifteen years. I reached them purely by my own investigations, not knowing that there was a church on earth that would accept me in its fellows.h.i.+p while holding them. I could not perjure myself by subscribing to a creed which I not only did not believe, but despised, merely for the sake of the social prestige or business advantage such church members.h.i.+p might give me, as I have known some to do, and was often importuned to do myself.

Whatever other shortcoming may be charged to my account, it can never be said of me that I was untrue to my own moral convictions in these matters; altho this tenacity to principle, or as it was often called, "hard-headed stubbornness," has more than once caused me embarra.s.sment, and put me at some disadvantage in business. I could not "let the tongue say what the heart denied."

My views of the church itself had also necessarily changed with my changed views of its theology. I no longer looked upon it as an inst.i.tution of supernatural sanct.i.ty and authority. To me it is simply The a.s.sembly. Any a.s.sembly of people gathered together for the wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d is a true church. It does not depend upon any particular form of organization, the maintenance and administration of any particular ordinances, or so-called sacraments. It does not depend upon "Succession,"--Apostolic, Baptismal, Ordination, organization or otherwise. "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." This is all that is essential to a true church. It depends upon unity of purpose, rather than uniformity of belief. Hence, any a.s.sembly of people, anywhere, united together for the wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d, striving to live better lives themselves, and to help others to do the same, and thus make this world better and human life happier, meets all the essentials of a true church of G.o.d, regardless of any form of organization, ordinance, sacrament, creed, belief or ecclesiastical pedigree.

But for years,--as will presently appear,--I did not know that any church existed, that would come any way near meeting this definition.

I naturally supposed that any organization calling itself a church was based upon belief in the Bible as the infallible word of G.o.d, and the sole source of authority in all matters of religion. This I had completely abandoned and could never go back to it. In fact I did not trouble myself to inquire for a possible church fellows.h.i.+p. I supposed I was forever barred from any church members.h.i.+p whatever, except that I felt a welcome in attending the Reformed Jewish synagogue, where the preaching was on a high intellectual plane, sane and rational, dealing with modern problems instead of ancient creeds and dogmas; and I liked this. But I was not a Jew; and I knew I could never accept their theology. All I could ever expect was to be a welcome visitor, "a stranger within the gate."

However, I must go back a little. Some few years after I left the ministry of the Methodist Church, and while still living not far from the last church I served, a friend one day asked why I had left the Church and ministry. I told him very briefly a few of my doctrinal difficulties; to which he replied, "Ashley, you are a Unitarian." I thought but little of it. I was not really interested in churches any more anyway. But he handed me a pamphlet to read and told me he was a Unitarian back in Ohio where he came from. I read the pamphlet at his request. I do not now remember what it was, or just what it was about.

But I was impressed with the fact that the views therein expressed were very similar to my own; and if that was Unitarianism I was also probably a Unitarian. But still it aroused no special interest as there was no Unitarian church anywhere about. If there had been, I might then have been led to investigate further. But years went by, and all the perceptible effect was that I would occasionally think how nearly I must be a Unitarian, until I finally determined that if I ever had an opportunity I would investigate the matter further.

In the summer of 1912, business relations led me to move to Dallas, Texas. Pa.s.sing on the street one day, I noticed the sign, First Unitarian Church. A new inspiration came to me. I now had an opportunity to investigate just how near my religious convictions coincided with those of this church. When the church opened after the summer vacation I began to attend its services, only occasionally at first, reading in the meantime much of its literature kept at the church for free distribution. I became intensely interested and by the spring of 1913 I was a regular attendant. The more I read the more I found myself in substantial accord with what I understood to be the salient points of twentieth century Unitarianism. I found especially these points that impressed me very deeply: It had no creed. It had no specific statement of beliefs. It had no doctrinal standard or test of religious faith as a condition of church members.h.i.+p. It not only permitted, but encouraged the greatest freedom of thought and the most searching investigation of all subjects presented for consideration, believing firmly that truth had nothing to fear from such a course. I found it had no test of members.h.i.+p but that of human character. I found a man was judged by what _he is_, and not by what he thinks or believes. I found its service to be reverent and dignified, but free from useless ceremonial. The preaching by Rev. George Gilmour, its minister, I found to be profound and scholarly, yet deeply spiritual and inspiring, dealing primarily with present-day religious and social problems rather than creeds, dogmas or beliefs. I was profoundly surprised and much gratified to find a church and people and minister so broad, so liberal and so fraternal as I found this First Unitarian Church in Dallas. I soon found that whether I agreed with all other Unitarians or not, I at least had here a free and cordial fellows.h.i.+p for the wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d and the service of man, without any ecclesiastical harness to put on, or any strings to limit me to prescribed bounds. A new light dawned upon me. The bondage of orthodoxy I had broken years ago. But I wandered for years in the desert of agnosticism, famis.h.i.+ng and unfed. I had found in my own heart the bread of life; but I had no table at which to spread it--and man being a social animal as well as a religious one, cannot live alone.

My name was soon on the members.h.i.+p roll of this church, where I hope it will remain until I am translated, no matter where else I may serve and place it. It was here that I first found my bearings and placed my feet on the solid rock of rational religion. The supreme satisfaction, the peace of mind, serene content, and supernal joy of this situation I shall not attempt to describe. Those that were born in a liberal faith and have never known anything else can neither understand nor appreciate it. It is indeed a new birth, a new light, a new life of freedom, fellows.h.i.+p and fraternity in a common service for G.o.d and humanity.

THE NEW CALL TO PREACH

I have before described what I once interpreted as a "divine call to preach." It was the new-born enthusiasm of one who felt himself "a brand s.n.a.t.c.hed from the eternal burning" to proclaim the same deliverance to what he believed to be a lost and ruined world; to warn sinners to "flee from the wrath to come." It was then the consuming pa.s.sion of a soul on fire with zeal for the salvation of all mankind from what he believed to be an overwhelming and eternal destruction that awaited them, and might come upon them at any moment without warning.

And now, having tasted of the sweets of liberty, I desired "to proclaim liberty thruout the land to all the inhabitants thereof," the same liberty to those yet in the bondage of fear from which I had escaped and to those who were still wandering in the deserts of doubt, looking for a haven of rest, and not knowing that it was so near. I knew that the great ma.s.ses were inside of the houses in which they were born, with the doors all bolted and the windows fastened down. Not a ray of light is permitted to enter there, because a new thought might explode their delusions and disturb their repose. For these there is little hope.

But I knew there were yet thousands--I had met and talked with many of them--who, as I was for years, were wandering in the deserts, hungering for the bread of life, looking for a fellows.h.i.+p where they might have freedom of thought and conscience, and yet join with others of like minds in the free wors.h.i.+p of Nature's one great G.o.d.

I would address myself to these. I was so long one of them, I thought my experience might be of benefit. It would aid me in helping them. I would tell my story of bondage, of deliverance, of wandering in the deserts of doubt, of the dawning light, of the full blaze of the sun of liberty, of freedom and fellows.h.i.+p in the wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d and the service of mankind.

I have now spent five years in this service, the happiest and best years of my life. They have been crowned with some degree of success.

I am not yet old. I hope to be able to devote at least a score of years yet to this happy service. Having escaped from Bondage to Liberty myself, my only ambition now is to carry the message of deliverance to others, until they shall likewise find freedom in The Fatherhood of G.o.d, The Brotherhood of Man, The Leaders.h.i.+p of Jesus, Salvation by Character instead of Creed, and the hope of the Progress of Mankind Onward and Upward Forever. My only regret is that I did not discover this way of light and liberty long before, so that I might have had more years to devote to this happy service.

AN AFTERWORD

Dear reader, my story is finished. I have had but one motive in writing it: A hope that I may in some way help others who are still in the meshes of ecclesiastical bondage, or disturbing doubts, to find the way of light and liberty in a rational religious faith. To what extent I have succeeded or failed, only the future and my readers can determine. If you have derived any benefit from it; if I have been able to cast any ray of light along your pathway; if it has helped you to solve any problem that has perplexed you, I am fully repaid for the labor of writing it. I have not said nearly all that is in my heart, nor all I would like to say, but all the compa.s.s of this work would permit. But if I have stirred up in the mind of the reader a desire to know more of the questions so briefly discussed herein, and to press his investigations further for this purpose, I have little doubt as to what will be the ultimate result.

And just one more thing, dear reader: If this book has been of any benefit to you; if it has helped to clear up any doubts in your mind, and point the way toward light and liberty in your own life and experience, may it not do as much for others? It may be the saving of a life from Bondage to Liberty; to that "peace that pa.s.seth understanding," in a rational religious faith, based, not upon dogma or creed, but upon man's fundamental nature and need, interpreted and applied by that highest and best light that man has, ENLIGHTENED REASON, for the same G.o.d who is the Author of Religion is also the Author of Reason.