PREFATORY NOTICE.

580

THE lectures contained in the following pages are published by request of the society before which they were delivered. Those on Immortality and Religion have been considerably abridged and condensed. The remainder have been allowed to retain their original form without any serious modification. The First Anniversary Discourse reviews the work of the year, and gives a brief account of the motives which impelled the society to organize and of the general animus by which its labors are directed. The Lecture entitled The Form of the Ideal foreshadows the constructive purpose of the movement. The articles on The Evolution of Hebrew Religion and Reformed Judaism from the Popular Science Monthly (September, 1876) and the North American Review (July-August and September-October) con

tain the substance of several of the lectures of last winter's course, and are reprinted in the appendix with the kind consent of the editors. Rigid adherence to the requirements of systematic exposition is

203071

neither possible nor desirable in addresses of this kind and has not therefore been attempted.

In giving this volume to the public I gladly embrace the opportunity of expressing my sincere gratitude to those faithful and self-sacrificing friends whose indefatigable labors have gone so far to win for a hazardous venture the promise of assured permanence and satisfactory development.

New York, September, 1877.

FELIX ADLER.