reluctance felt by many to tolerate discussion upon such a
subject as the existence and nature of God. I trust that I may
have made the reader feel that he need fear no sarcasm or levity
in my treatment of the subject which I have chosen. I will,
therefore, proceed to sketch out a plan of what I hope to
establish, and this in no doubtful or unnatural sense, but by
attaching the same meanings to words as those which we usually
attach to them, and with the same certainty, precision, and
clearness as anything else is established which is commonly
called known.

As to what God is, beyond the fact that he is the Spirit and the
Life which creates, governs, and upholds all living things, I can
say nothing. I cannot pretend that I can show more than others
have done in what Spirit and the Life consists, which governs
living things and animates them. I cannot show the connection
between consciousness and the will, and the organ, much less can
I tear away the veil from the face of God, so as to show wherein
will and consciousness consist. No philosopher, whether Christian
or Rationalist, has attempted this without discomfiture; but I
can, I hope, do two things: Firstly, I can demonstrate, perhaps
more clearly than modern science is prepared to admit, that there
does exist a single Being or Animator of all living things - a
single Spirit, whom we cannot think of under any meaner name than
God; and, secondly, I can show something more of the
persona or bodily expression, mask, and mouthpiece of this
vast Living Spirit than I know of as having been familiarly
expressed elsewhere, or as being accessible to myself or others,
though doubtless many works exist in which what I am going to say
has been already said.