4495 .R44: PREFATORY NOTE This volume comprises addresses made by members of the teaching community of the Meadville Theological School. The authors are men who are exempt from every dogmatic constraint imposed by institutions and are accustomed to shape and to utter their convictions in the atmosphere of a chartered freedom. chartered freedom. They are content with the natural and unforced unity which is born of a common purpose and a common method of considering the religious life. The methods and results of Biblical Criticism and of the critical historical study of all religions have become long since the law of their thinking. The volume is not designed to illustrate the negative tendencies of the critical spirit, but rather to give expression to the affirmative faith animating men habituated to such conditions of theological inquiry and so to evidence the present tone and spirit of this school of devout study. The selection of these addresses has been guided therefore not by the need of completeness in discussion, but by the practical desire to apply the religion of free inquirers to the hearts and lives of men. |