Doubt dims and chills the day. A fog is over all things, and men move about like Egypt's ancients when they felt the darkness. Oh that this mist would lift! The best we can hope is that the present gloom may pass away right speedily, and that the cloud may leave a dew behind, to nourish a more intelligent and unquestioning faith.

In this clammy skepticism no race but the puniest can be nurtured. Men who are greatly good are hill-born, and love the fresh air of the mountains of truth.

The paragraphs of this little book are not supposed, to be an argument. It was not my aim to convince an opponent, but to assist a friend. How I have, personally threaded the labyrinth of life thus far, may be of helpful interest to some other soul which just now is in a maze. I hope that by these pages some true heart may be assisted to "fight his doubts and gather strength." Let no man's heart fail him, for the prevalent skepticisms are but "specters of the mind." Face them, and they fly.

A great poet let fall the expression, "honest doubt." How greedily it was clutched at! Modern unbelief is so short of the quality that it seized the label, and, in season and out of season, it has advertised itself as HONEST doubt. It was in dire need of a character.