Excerpt from Confessions of an Old Priest I have been for fifty years a minister in the church. I entered its ministry with enthusiasm, believing as I did that the church was the one organization in the world of divine institution, that it owes its origin to Jesus Christ, and that he was the unique Son of God. I have been reluctantly forced to ask myself whether any of these things is true. So far I have been silent and have retained the commis sion which I accepted in good faith. I have done so for what seemed to me good and valid reasons. In the first place, I wanted to be sure. Fifty years is surely long enough for consideration. Now, having gone over the ground again and again I am sure. But I knew that an open avowal of my convictions would distress many souls, some of them very dear to me. In the second place, situ ated as I am, I am under no compulsion to teach or preach. I have served my full complement of years and have been honorably retired. When I do preach there is matter aplenty to furnish forth many sermons in the common impulse and motives of men outside all dogma. Beside that, and for what the consideration may be worth, I am in no way dependent upon the priestly office for my daily bread. I do not need to take my turn in the temple service for sake of a share in the meat of the sacrifice. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.