And now, dear reader, if you have diligently read the preceding pages, you can understand how carefully the various objections to our religion have been examined and how thoroughly answered. During the last twenty-five years human intellect has made advances which have astonished even students of science. Scientific positions which were deemed impregnable a generation ago, have been swept away by a storm of new ideas; and the sunshine of examination has melted many an iceberg of prejudice, and dissipated many an intellectual fog. True it is that in advance of us are "Banks of cloud darkly bounding the horizon, and loftier Alps of thought which remain to be scaled." Yet Faith penetrates the vail and sees the glorious land of promise—the inheritance of our race. Even to those who have not faith, the victories of God's truth over the vagaries of men is an earnest of future triumph. When men shall understand what is the true gospel and what is true science then will come not conflict, but the peace of mutual recognition and mutual understanding. Oh, let us be calm, and wait reverently for God to vindicate His own everlasting TRUTH.

"It breaks—it comes—the misty shadows fly;
A rosy radiance gleams upon the sky;
The mountain tops reflect it calm and clear,
the plain is yet in shade but day is near."

Transcriber's Notes:

The Table of Contents was not present in the original edition, but was added by the transcriber for the HTML edition, and reproduced in the text edition for consistency.

Many cases of archaic spelling have been preserved. However, the following have been judged to be errors in printing, and have been corrected as indicated:

On page 13, where the original reads "ninty," this edition reads "ninety."
On page 42, where the original reads "destribution," this edition reads "distribution."
On page 81, where the original reads "Eygptian," this edition reads "Egyptian."
On page 100, where the original reads "doeth," this edition reads "doth."
On page 118, where the original reads "Pasover," this edition reads "Passover."
On page 120, where the original reads "diciple," this edition reads "disciple."
On page 120, where the original reads "Messiaic," this edition reads "Messianic."
On page 160, where the original reads "evelasting," this edition reads "everlasting."
On page 163, where the original reads "orginal," this edition reads "original."
On page 164, where the original reads "philospher," this edition reads "philosopher."
On page 177, one of a set of duplicated words (be be) was deleted.
On page 198, where the original reads "enornous," this edition reads "enormous."
On page 211, where the original reads "spendid," this edition reads "splendid."