Copyright, 1899, by Charles Scribner's Sons TROW DIRECTORY NEW YORK PREFACE Lest the writer be thought to be holding up a primitive people to ridicule, a few words of explanation may be necessary. It is not my wish to decry religion: I have seen instances of sincerity and childlike faith, especially among the Free Methodists. There is one Evangelist now preaching in the rain-belt who gave up his position of railroad engineer to work and suffer for a pittance in the cause of Christ. But as an eye-witness to the shallowness and absurdities palmed off on a credulous community under the name of religion, it has been my wish to set forth the harm of emotional religion-to show how the glaring inconsistency between professions of holiness and imperfect lives tends to dull the moral sense. M623.52 |