In the distance, I can hear thunder, and a flash of lightning illumines my window. A cry of a loon comes with the flash. It is strange; it is weird--and wonderful. And also, in a way, it has just occurred to me that it is a fitting kind of night to begin that which I have been asked to write. For this night, for a short space, will be like the great world at large--a world that is rocking in the throes of a mighty tumult--a tumult of unrest, of discontent, of mad strivings, of despair, and lack of faith--a world that is rushing blindfold into unknown things, that is seeking rest and peace, yet can never find them. It is, I repeat, a strange night to begin the writing of that which I have been asked to write, and yet I do not think that I would have the night changed. It seems to picture to me more vividly the unrest of the world fifteen hundred miles away--and fifteen thousand miles away. I seem to see with clearer vision what has happened during the past two years--the mad questing of a thousand million people for a spiritual thing which they cannot find. I see, from this vantage-point of the deep forest, a world torn by five hundred schisms and religions, and I see not one religion that fills the soul with faith and confidence. I see the multitudes of the earth reaching up their arms and crying for the Great Mystery of life to be solved. Questions that are racking the earth come to me in the whisperings of the approaching storm. Can the ghosts of the dead return? Can the spirits of the departed commune with the living? Is the world on the edge of an inundation of spiritualism? Does the salvation of humanity lie there--or there--or there? What shall I believe? What _can_ I believe? The rain is beginning to beat on the roof of my cabin and, in number, the drops of the rain remind me of the millions and the tens of millions of restless men and women who are reading avidly, in the pages of magazines and books, the “experiences” of those who are giving voice to new creeds and new beliefs or reviving old ones long lost in the dust of forgotten ages. Ghosts have been revived; spirits are on the move again. New generations are drinking in with wonder and suspense the whole bagful of tricks worn out ten thousand generations ago. To-morrow it may be the revival of witchcraft. And the next day new prophets may arise and new religions take the place of the old. For so travel the minds of men; and so they have traveled for hundreds of thousands of years before Christ was born and Christianity was known; and so they will go on seeking until God is found in a form so simple and intimate that all humanity will at last understand.