“Will you please give me all your attention, without thinking of anything else whilst you read. I have been _thinking_, five minutes in church last Sunday morning, and since then I have deliberated. You see I have been brought up to teach—in an age when great things are expected of teachers—patience, lucidity, sympathy, and I don’t know what. One’s classes are never blamed for stupidity, carelessness or inattention—only the teacher. That has its dangers for the pupils, certainly, but it does not excuse the teacher from doing the utmost best.... Now I have a book which is as easy to read as A B C (for those who will attend). It has no allegories in it, no myths—nothing but Truth. And I am very proud of it, for it was given me by God right away down at the bottom of the Valley of Despair and Humiliation. I have been wandering about down there, it is true, ever since, but that proves all the more that it is direct from God, for otherwise it isn’t the air in which an ordinary person could live at all. I am not to blame either for keeping it all this time (I wrote it in the spring and summer of 1901), for I _did_ send it to some publisher or other one Friday night and it was back by Tuesday morning—and it was too good for that. Too good to be tossed about from one place to the other like any tramp or fawning beggar asking to be taken in.... I am very serious, I am sending to you something that I was going to say is more precious to me than life—I only pray God grant that it may be.” The manuscript was duly read and reported on, and, subject to some necessary alterations and omissions being made, it was accepted for publication and a promise given that it should be published on the first of December. The suggested revision was the subject of considerable correspondence. The following few lines are taken from a letter dated August 13th 1905:— “_August 13th._ “The first part of the book is true—man can witness that—and for the remainder God is witness. I have not written it for money, I have not written it to please, but only to instruct and lighten those few who care to understand, and they may be few now, but some day they will be many.... Of course I am a bit frightened of the world, but, believe me, I am a great deal more frightened of God. _Real_ fear. That is what makes me write common sense about Heaven instead of twaddle, and as for people being so sensitive about Jesus Christ—they don’t feel all that much, or the world would be a vastly different place.... When I wrote _Marigold_ you wanted to send a copy to all the religious papers, but I should like _that_ for _this_ instead, for it is the essence of real, true religion.”