PREFACE. THE task attempted in the following chapters is to make a natural history of religious faith, describing the matters with which religious faith occupies itself, and the mental experience of its dealing with them. The writer has endeavoured to treat the subject purely in this light, avoiding all help or entanglement which might arise in considering faith in its connection with any religious or philosophical system; and with the same view has avoided the use of conventional language on the subject, which might be suggestive of theoretical thought. The means of investigation are the authentic history of religious experience contained in the Bible, and the explanatory analogies by which revelation instructs mankind in the nature of the religious relationship. The order of treatment is analytical. The Introductory Chapter notices how man's peculiar connection with God determines the subject of his religious thinking, and makes it necessary that his thoughts shall be instructed by God. Chapter II. is taken up with the |