INTRODUCTION. In THERE is a very great need to-day that men shall be brought to feel that religion is not a thing apart, that it is knit up with the ordinary processes of our lives. We need to see that being religious is not having some vague, mystical experience, but living a life of real friendship. Perhaps as never before men are coming to realize that Christian life is not abnormal, but the most completely normal. this life we use the same powers of personality which we use in our ordinary friendships, the sole difference being that in this God friendship we are associated with a perfect and full personality; while in all other friendships we are associated with incomplete and partial persons like ourselves. This makes a difference in the intensity and meaning of our friendship, but no difference as to kind. Further, there is a need to quiet the minds of some who seem to think psychology is putting God out of the workings of the human soul. A few year ago, when evolution was in the enthusiastic flush of a new discovery, many of its advocates and still more of the Christian people thought it was destined to explain away God's working in the universe of physical nature. But we have long since ceased to feel that evolution is opposed to religion. It claims to be only a theory of the method of creation; and if it can and does reveal to us the method by which God works, we may well rejoice in this new light, which is essentially religious. Psychology is just now beginning to make a serious study of the phenomena of religious experience; and as we come to understand the psychic changes which go on at conversion, some seem to fear that God's relation to the inner experiences of man will be explained away. On the contrary, I am convinced that we shall soon come to see that psychology is simply showing us the manner in which God (II) moves upon a human spirit, even as science helped us to see how he moved in the realm of the physical. We therefore have nothing to fear ultimately from a careful study of the psychic laws of religious experience. Only there is need to help men see this, lest on the one hand some may repudiate psychology, and on the other some may repudiate religion. In the third place, there is need that men shall recognize that there are fundamental laws for spreading the Gospel. One of these fundamental laws is testimony. The Church and religious workers have far too long neglected this form of Christian activity. There needs to be a group of men and women in every community who have gotten clear conceptions of what it is to be a Christian, how this fact relates itself to other life, upon what facts Christian experience is based, and whether or not the whole matter is reasonable and normal. Such persons by personal dealings with others may lead the strongest and best of their communities into fellowship with Christ. This little volume being purely practical in purpose, can in only a very brief and inadequate way set forth some of these fundamental truths, in the hope that some who are in doubt may be strengthened; that some who have not before done so may find expression for their religious experiences; and that all who thus see more clearly the meaning of their experience may through personal testimony lead others into fellowship with Christ. My ten years of travel and work with college men have led me to the deliberate conclusion that the most real facts of to-day are the awful ravages of sin, and the consequent need of men, the uncertainty on the part of many as to how men can get freedom from sin, and the absolute truth of the fact, which any one may verify, that Christ can save and make free. I wish to acknowledge my obligations to Mr. A. J. Elliott and Mr. Ray H. Legate for many helpful suggestions, and to Mr. W. H. Morgan for his services in correction of the manuscript. I ought also to acknowledge my deep indebtedness to the Bible study courses of Dr. Edward I. Bosworth for much of the inspiration of this book. If this little volume leads even a few to accept the Christ friendship as a life program; if it enlightens and strengthens the faith of some; if it encourages even a small number to begin reporting their religious experiences to others, thus leading them into the Christian life; above all, if it helps only a few to see how truly normal, how simple, how beautiful, and how wonderfully impelling is this friendship of the Christ, I shall be deeply grateful to those who called it forth. NASHVILLE, TENN., December 31, 1910. |