Transcriber's Notes:
Blank pages have been eliminated.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in theoriginal.
A few typographical errors have been corrected.
The cover page was created by the transcriber and can be considered public domain.
Essays on the Spiritual Unity of Life
By
G. H. Percival
London
Williams & Norgate
14 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden
1908
| CHAP. | PAGE |
| 1. The Spirit of Truth | 1 |
| 2. The Evidence of Things Unseen | 21 |
| 3. The Alchemy of Love | 48 |
| 4. The Heritage of Pain | 65 |
| 5. The Vesture of God | 91 |
| 6. Spiritual Correspondence | 122 |
The Incarnate Purpose
There exists in certain religious circles the ideathat criticism of Christian doctrine is an undesirablething, because indicative of a spirit ofirreverence and faithlessness that is at variancewith the fundamental principles of Christianity.According to Catholic teaching, the Churchis founded upon divine revelation, to doubtthe reality of which is to question the truthof the Word of God. It is not to be supposedthat the finite understandings of men canfathom the infinite mysteries of God. Doesnot the conception that it is possible for thedivine truths of religion to be comprehendedby means of the same evidential methodsadopted in the acquisition of secular know[2]ledge,imply a practical denial of the existenceof a supreme God, since the creature wouldthus be made to appear as equal in wisdomand power with the Creator?
Most seekers after the Word of God meetat one time or other with some such argumentagainst the propriety of their endeavours toobtain evidence of the intrinsic truth ofChristian teaching. But the charge of irreverencebrought against honest inquiry is powerlessto affect the belief, held by many educatedmen and women, that a pure desire to knowand to do the will of God necessitates theexercising of intellectual as well as of spiritualfaculties, in order that what is true in theteaching offered to them in the name ofChrist may be separated from what is false,to the greater glory of God and to the furtheringof the divine purpose of Life.
Hostility towards criticism of religiousdoctrine appears to all impartial minds to benot only of doubtful service to the cause ofReligion as a whole, but also to cast discredit[3]on the ability of any particular creed to sustainan examination in detail of its articles. In anera when most things touching the healthand general well-being of men are subjectedto crit