We intend this to be a pungently searching book; but fidelity and harshness are not identical. Fidelity to truth is perfectly consistent with the deepest love of the people. It is not love to silently suffer sin upon our fellows. This cowardly course renders the prophet a partaker of the sins of the people. Earnest, courageous protest, at wrong everywhere, is the highest evidence of Christlike love. Many a life has been saved by the surgeon's knife. And many a soul has been saved from sin and hell by those courageous preachers of righteousness who are termed by Christ the violent men who take the kingdom of heaven by force, (Matt. 11:12), or, as one marginal reading renders it, "They, (i.e., the violent men), who thrust men," take the kingdom of heaven by force. How this recalls that similar statement from the Old Testament, -- "Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord deceitfully, (R. V. negligently), and cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood." (Jeremiah 48:10). So, my dear reader, will you not remember that back of the cutting, heart searching truth this book contains, is a heart of love? Whatever is said of wrong conditions in various movements in no wise reflects upon the good sincere people of God in those movements.

The following blunt, homely, Theses, are the outcome of much sorrow and agony of heart over the low state of spirituality in the Protestant churches and their allied offshoots. They were written after many days of fasting and prayer, and thirty-six nights of prayer during their preparation, in the course of as many weeks, and while preaching most of the time, once, twice, and in some instances, thrice daily. This does not imply that they were born in that brief compass of time, as the thoughts taking concrete form in them, are the result of from three to four hundred thousand miles of travel, and impartial, unprejudiced, actual observation of religious conditions in this country and Canada. Often, the agony of prayer for a revival in the whole body of Christ was like unto the expulsive stage of a woman in travail, as the heart was torn and bleeding over the disunity in the Church, and her consequent powerlessness.

Many of the thoughts contained in this volume have been given the scientific test of verification; they have been preached under the signal seal and anointing of the Holy Spirit, and confirmed by the liberation from bondage, of many souls, into the glorious, untrammeled liberty of the children of God, which is ours in Christ Jesus. This message is sent forth in faith, believing that God will further seal and own it. Whatever is helpful is from God; whatever is weak and unworthy is of the creature.

Let me here record my deep consciousness of unworthiness to write the following hortatory paragraphs to my fellows. I write altogether as a sinner saved by grace alone, through faith, and as a subject of Him who justifies the ungodly.

If it be said that some of the exposures are not typical of New Testament Christianity in its highest form, let us consider that the world indiscriminately makes no distinction, and the organized church, in its low state of spirituality, fails to discern it, as a whole. There are, however, exceptions, so much counterfeit assuring the existence of the genuine, and bringing it to the light.

The motive in depicting conditions as they are is not personal, but altogether a matter of fidelity to the trust God has committed unto us, and to the Truth. When a prominent co-worker of many of the leading exponents of the highest life, testifies that none of them live, under close observation, what they preach, in the interest of truth it is time to investigate and to throw quickly to the scrap pile, theories which do not meet the scientific test of verification.

A book of over five hundred pages, recently written and published, entitled "Now It Can Be Told, " by a prominent war correspondent of Great Britain, Sir Philip Gibbs, is having a phenomenal circulation in this country -- in fact it is one of the most popular non-fiction books of the day. We are not aware that the writer of this startling book has been accused of lack of patriotism, or of treason, for making these startling revelations. There are things in the church that have not been told which we are telling, not in disloyalty nor unsympathetically, but solely in the hope and faith that they may be used of God to stir the church and the ministry, the writer and readers, to seek the remedy.

The fact of the publication of this book is a miracle of faith, involving, as it does, several thousand dollars cost for the first economical edition of ten thousand copies, not a penny of Which was in hand before the book was finished in manuscript form, but prayer being answered for its publication when the manuscript was completed.

Arthur C. Zepp