Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Lectures on the Theistic Faith: And Its Foundations, and on the Bible
If there be any such here to-night, I do not address myself to them on the present occasion. My errand is to the religious people, to the hearty believers, first of all; and in the second place it is to those who, having become dissatisfied with the creed of their childhood, are yet nu certain what to believe, or how to set about in their search for a Faith that shall be compatible with reason, sustain them under the trials and temptations of life, and comfort them in the hour of death. To these I would fain speak, but I have no word now for the thoughtless, the fri volous, and the irreligious. It is a fact too well known to be disguised or forgotten that the school of religious thought to which I belong, and which I have come here to represent, is an object of suspicion, dislike, and even detestation to a large portion of our Christian brethren. I do not wonder at this I can evenfind grounds ou which this aversion may be ex cused. In the first place, ignorance, and in the second place, prejudice, are the causes of the aversion. Christians in general are profoundly ignorant of what we believe and teach and this ignorance is due partly to the fact that we have not had time or opportunity to explain our Faith to them, and partly to the wilful misrepresents tions of our views by bigoted persons and publi cations. We need not recount the list of bad names given to us, any one of which, such as infidel, blasphemer, atheist, would be enough to keep us from a fair hearing and to engender the deepest suspicion. NO wonder then that, while this ignorance of our Faith prevails, we should be regarded with distrust and aver sion. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
