Excerpt from The Religion of a Gentleman Almost since I was a boy it has been the wish of my life that I might be able to make the statement of religion in such a way as to commend the subject and make it attractive to the young. It has been my faith that religion must be capable of the most interesting, persuasive, and reasonable treatment. Religion did not, however, ap peal to me in this W335; fat; On the contrary, in my case, as ois f, tonb't, tau'ef with many to day, the subject Js'eemed some what distant and even Religious teaching has too often made to take on the hue of melancholy and even the shadow of death. It has seemed to threaten not merely to deprive us of pleasure (this might be borne) but also to deprive us of life and activity, and to shut us up in a narrow and spectral region. I early found in myself an instinctive hunger for life here in this world; for all which this life offers; for a large, normal, wholesome, active, satisfying life. The Greek spirit, and not the Puritan only, was in me. I loved reason, order, harmony, and unity. I could not bear to have to make a special plea for my religion, to defend it, to apologize for it, to entertain apprehensions that it might some day be overwhelmed by shrewd questions or by some new scientific or historical discovery. I could not to think of a divided uniycfise ii'i nce and religion were dobi'ned' to live tat-part. 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.