aggeration in uttering my truths. And I was punished
in the fittest and funniest way, for I have kept my truths:
but I have discovered, not that they were not truths, but simply that
they were not mine. When I fancied that I stood alone I was really
in the ridiculous position of being backed up by all Christendom.
It may be, Heaven forgive me, that I did try to be original;
but I only succeeded in inventing all by myself an inferior copy
of the existing traditions of civilized religion. The man from
the yacht thought he was the first to find England; I thought I was
the first to find Europe. I did try to found a heresy of my own;
and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it
was orthodoxy.

It may be that somebody will be entertained by the account
of this happy fiasco. It might amuse a friend or an enemy to
read how I gradually learnt from the truth of some stray legend
or from the falsehood of some dominant philosophy, things that I
might have learnt from my catechism--if I had ever learnt it.
There may or may not be some entertainment in reading how I
found at last in an anarchist club or a Babylonian temple what I
might have found in the nearest parish church. If any one is
entertained by learning how the flowers of the field or the
phrases in an omnibus, the accidents of politics or the pains
of youth came together in a certain order to produce a certain
conviction of Christian orthodoxy, he may possibly read this book.
But there is in everything a reasonable division of labour.
I have written the book, and nothing on earth would induce me to read it.

I add one purely pedantic note which comes, as a note
naturally should, at the beginning of the book. These essays are
concerned only to discuss the actual fact that the central Christian
theology (sufficiently summarized in the Apostles' Creed) is the
best root of energy and sound ethics. They are not intended
to discuss the very fascinating but quite different question
of what is the present seat of authority for the proclamation
of that creed. When the word "orthodoxy" is used here it means
the Apostles' Creed, as understood by everybody calling himself
Christian until a very short time ago and the general historic
conduct of those who held such a creed. I have been forced by
mere space to confine myself to what I have got from this creed;
I do not touch the matter much disputed among modern Christians,
of where we ourselv