t, informed by
patient thought and the use of all the evidence available from those
who are entitled to be summoned as witnesses, the result inevitably is
merely a matter of superstition, or a spineless acquiescence in old and
futile beliefs. To continue all the while to believe in _religion_
while one is pursuing a course of reasoning which is bound to shatter
many of the interpretations of it which one has previously accepted,
requires the kind of intellectual endurance and the quality of faith
which characterize the inventor, or the scientific explorer.

When the author of this volume, as an unquestioning disciple of his
ancestral fellowship, earnestly sought to pledge all that he was and
all that he hoped to become to the salvation of those who he believed
stood in peril of everlasting torment, it was the unadulterated spirit
of religion which prompted him. But he was at that time unaware of
that fact. Religion was with him when it moved him to give himself for
others, but to him religion was itself something entirely different.
He was urged and commanded by a force, old as mankind, and it took him,
as the reader of these pages will see, many years of heart-breaking
endeavor, to learn that what most he desired was what most he
possessed. His quest was a long and weary one, and the reality of it
and the importance of it to him are proven by the thoroughness and the
eloquence with which his spiritual experience is recalled and set down
in these pages. Only one who had begun in earnest, proceeded in
anxiety and continued to the end, as if he absolutely believed in the
integrity of the human reason and the intimate friendliness of a
supreme Guidance, could have emerged at last triumphantly and with the
ability to tell the tale.

To him who thinks of religion only as a matter of course, or as an
affair of the church, or as a medium of social advantage; or to him who
identifies religion with the ravings of half-witted fanatics and
regards it with patronizing contempt, this book will make no appeal.
But to the man or woman who has learned that religion is one thing and
theology another, and at whatever cost, is willing to share with the
author in his struggle to know the truth about it and be at peace,
these pages will command undivided attention; for they relate not only
the story of mental perplexity ending in a great personal solution, but
they likewise have the charm of a real romance of the soul.

LEWIS G. WIL