I have now spent five years in this service, the happiest and best years of my life. They have been crowned with some degree of success. I am not yet old. I hope to be able to devote at least a score of years yet to this happy service. Having escaped from Bondage to Liberty myself, my only ambition now is to carry the message of deliverance to others, until they shall likewise find freedom in The Fatherhood of God, The Brotherhood of Man, The Leadership of Jesus, Salvation by Character instead of Creed, and the hope of the Progress of Mankind Onward and Upward Forever. My only regret is that I did not discover this way of light and liberty long before, so that I might have had more years to devote to this happy service. AN AFTERWORD Dear reader, my story is finished. I have had but one motive in writing it: A hope that I may in some way help others who are still in the meshes of ecclesiastical bondage, or disturbing doubts, to find the way of light and liberty in a rational religious faith. To what extent I have succeeded or failed, only the future and my readers can determine. If you have derived any benefit from it; if I have been able to cast any ray of light along your pathway; if it has helped you to solve any problem that has perplexed you, I am fully repaid for the labor of writing it. I have not said nearly all that is in my heart, nor all I would like to say, but all the compass of this work would permit. But if I have stirred up in the mind of the reader a desire to know more of the questions so briefly discussed herein, and to press his investigations further for this purpose, I have little doubt as to what will be the ultimate result. And just one more thing, dear reader: If this book has been of any benefit to you; if it has helped to clear up any doubts in your mind, and point the way toward light and liberty in your own life and experience, may it not do as much for others? It may be the saving of a life from Bondage to Liberty; to that "peace that passeth understanding," in a rational religious faith, based, not upon dogma or creed, but upon man's fundamental nature and need, interpreted and applied by that highest and best light that man has, ENLIGHTENED REASON, for the same God who is the Author of Religion is also the Author of Reason.