Reader, whatever your previous views of the subject here discussed, be assured you are meeting an appreciative fellow-explorer.

Very likely you are a youth eager to examine into every mystery of fact or fiction, but undecided into which of these two fields you are here invited. Perhaps you are a practical man of business, taking common sense as your guide, caring little for lengthy discussion, but ready, like an American tourist in Europe, to glance over the pages of a matter-of-fact guide-book. Perchance you are of meditative if not of speculative cast, longing to solve all mysteries if they can be solved, but doubtful whether in the present survey you are walking on the borders of the natural or the supernatural world. It may be you are a Christian believer; broken loose from your former fast moorings to the rock of Bible faith; driven farther yet, and more unhappily, from the anchorage of a spiritual hope; and now in doubt, alike as to the sure compass-guidings of reason and conscience, and as to the reliableness of the old chart trusted by your fathers. …