The other half of the story is, I think, still more momentous. It is full of pathos and tragedy, but laden with the prophecy of final triumph. I have tried to tell again this story, surely an old, old story, but always needing to be retold in the current language and the prevailing conceptions of the time. The main feature of this book is its insistence on the facts of experience. Its terms are not those of theology, but those of life, or if I have used theological words I have endeavored to re-vitalize them. I shall assume that my readers are familiar with the idea of the _conjunct life_ which I have expounded at length in a former book.[1] It is now well known that “isolated” personality is impossible. He who is to enjoy the rights and privileges of personality must be conjunct with others. He must be an organic member in a social group, and share himself with his fellows, while at the same time he receives contributions from them. This principle of the conjunct life reaches beyond the finite social fellowship in which a man forms and expresses his personality. God and man are conjunct. The ground for this position will not be gone over here. It has been sufficiently presented elsewhere. I believe, however, that no psychological discovery has ever thrown so much light upon the meaning of atonement and prayer as this fact of the conjunct life does, and I hope that many others may come to feel the freshness and reality of these deepest religious truths as I have felt them. In touching these two subjects we are touching the very pillars of religion. If atonement--God’s search for us--and prayer--our search for Him--are not real, then religion has no permanent ground of reality. But there can be no question that our age has witnessed a serious weakening of faith in both these central aspects of religion. The doctrine of the atonement does not grip men as it did once, and there are persons all about us who are perplexed about the place and efficacy of prayer. It is no frivolous questioning. It is not the result of a lazy attitude of mind. It is stern and serious. There is only one way to change this condition. We must make men feel again the reality of the atonement and the reality of prayer. That is the task which lies before those of us who believe. The day for dogmatic assertion is past. It rolls off most minds now as water rolls from oiled silk. The truths which march with power are the truths which are verified by, and buttressed with, facts. We must, then, learn how to carry the laboratory method into our religious teaching and ground our message in actual reality.