PROPOUNDED TO ALL WHOM IT MAY CONCERN
Before fully entering on this paper, I should like those who may be inclined to read it to understand very distinctly, once and for all, that I am a Christian. I am sorry that the too-hasty misjudgment of others compels me to assert the fact. The term "Atheist" has been applied to me by several persons who should know better,—for it is an absolutely false, and I may add, libellous accusation. That it has been uttered unthinkingly and at random, by idle chatterers who have never read a line I have written I can well believe,—nevertheless it is a mischievous rumour, as senseless as wicked. Poor and inadequate as my service is, and must ever be, still I am a follower of the Christian Faith, as expounded in Christ's own words to His disciples. I believe that Christian Faith to be the grandest and purest in the world,—the most hopeful, the most strengthening, the most soul-supporting and ennobling religion ever taught to humanity. To me, in hours of the bitterest trial, it has proved not "a reed shaken by the wind,"—but a rock firmer than the foundations of the world, against which the waves of tribulation break in vain and disperse
