PREFACE. THE accompanying studies appeared originally as essays in The Christian World newspaper. Their collection into a volume is due to a widely-expressed wish on the part of readers to possess them in a permanent form. While destitute of strict logical sequence there will be discerned in them, the writer believes, a certain continuity of purpose. At a time when, in the sphere of religion, the dogmatic assertions of external authority are received with increasing impatience by the educated laity, it is, he holds, of growing importance that incentives to the spiritual life be sought in the primary verdicts of the soul. There is no attempt here at a philosophy of the soul. What these papers offer is rather a series of suggestions by which the reader may perhaps be helped towards forming one of his own. It will be observed that some of the themes |