Note 1 — PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION

“This book,” writes one of its clerical critics,1 “is evidently the honest, outspoken opinion of one who, having been brought up in an unquestioning acceptance of the orthodox doctrines of Christianity, has gradually drifted into the extreme of Rationalism.” Up to a certain point my friend is right. I was indeed brought up in an unquestioning acceptance of the orthodox teachings of Christianity; but, while my conversion to Rationalism has certainly been gradual, I may fairly claim that the process has been something very different from merely drifting. Long and careful study, the reluctant abandonment of a cherished belief, the adoption of an attitude which is unpopular and which distresses many who are near and dear to me, the practical application of the principles of Rationalism to daily life, involving as it does the serious step of bringing up my children in strict accordance with my firm convictions—these are surely not the ways of one who has permitted himself to drift. A man might—he often does—drift into indifferentism, or, now that theology is so liberal and heterodoxy so rife, into latitudinarianism, but hardly into “the extreme of Rationalism.”