I know that the author's one desire is to help men to be more real in
their religion. I share his hope, and I believe that this book will do
much to accomplish it.




AUTHOR'S PREFACE


This book has grown out of the writer's experience in preparing men
and officers in military hospitals for Confirmation. It represents, in
a considerably expanded but--as it is hoped--still simple form, the
kind of things which he would have wished to say to them, and to
others with whom he was brought into contact, if he had had more time
and opportunity than was usually afforded him. It seemed necessary to
write the book, because there did not appear to be in existence any
reasonably short book on similar lines which covered the ground of
Christian faith and practice as a whole, and which approached the
subject from the point of view which seems to the writer to be the
most real.

The writer is consciously indebted in the first chapter to the
discussion of our Lord's teaching and character in Dr. T. B. Glover's
fascinating book, _The Jesus of History_. It is possible that there
are other and unconscious obligations which have been overlooked. Here
and there acknowledgment is made in footnotes, and an occasional
phrase, "lifted" from some other writer, has been placed in inverted
commas.