The Godward side of life

Foreword

These sermons are offered to those who will read them in the hope that they may have a message for our time. They were all, with one exception — the sermon before the American Board — given to the people of two parishes — the First Church in Detroit or the Central Church in Providence — in the ordered course of our parish life and were meant for the people to whom they were preached and colored by the conditions under which they were given. So much the reader will discover for himself.

They gather around one central theme — the Godward Side of Life — and there is of necessity a good deal of repetition. All that has been left with little alteration. The theme itself is commanding enough to be much dwelt upon.

Most of them were given before we entered the war; one or two before the war began. If there are paragraphs which the duty of the hour seems to contradict they have been left in the author's hope and confidence that a happier future will bring them into a new perspective. They seem to him to be of the essence of the Kingdom of God.

Finally, no one is more conscious of how much these sermons leave to seek than the man who preached them.

The Minister's Study,

The First Congregational Church in Detroit, October 2d, 1917.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I The Supreme Service of Religion 1

II The Practice of the Presence of God 15