PEEFACE 7 



education for religion that is threatening to overturn 

 man's philosophy of Hfe. The great Russian philoso- 

 pher declares that religion does not rest upon a vague 

 fear of the unseen forces of nature but upon man's 

 consciousness of his finiteness amid an infinite uni- 

 verse, and of his sinfulness. " This consciousness," 

 Tolstoy added, " man can never outgrow." 



An ansv^er is given to those who condemn religion 

 because of its mysteries. Life, love, patriotism, and 

 all other things with which man deals are full of 

 mystery and yet we live, we love, and are patriotic. 

 If we only apply to religion the same common sense 

 that we apply to daily life we shall put into practice 

 that which w-e do know instead of being distracted by 

 that which we may never be able to know. If man 

 only lives up to so much of the Bible as he does un- 

 derstand he will be too busy doing good to worry about 

 passages which he finds difficult. 



Belief in God is the basis upon which rest all the 

 great influences that control our lives — all these will 

 go if belief in God goes. The existence of God, there- 

 fore, becomes the basic fact not only in religion but in 

 society and civilization. 



Chapter II deals wath the Bible as the Book of 

 books. It is either a man-made book or a book by 

 inspiration given. Those who believe it to be a man- 

 made book are challenged to put their theory to the 

 test. If man made the Bible, man ought to be able 

 to make a better book to-day than the Bible. If the 

 Bible is a man-made book, it must be remembered that 

 it was made by a comparatively few persons of a single 



