Foreword
In the soul of every man, in which the Holy Spirit has commenced His work, there are depths of yearning desire which cannot be satisfied from a merely intellectual standpoint. As in David’s experience so in ours, both heart and flesh cry out for the living God. But God is Spirit, and they that worship Him, or aspire to share in that divine fellowship to which He invites us, must do so in spirit and in truth.
The present decline in church attendance may be largely due to the failure of the pulpit to meet the demand of the human spirit for a more adequate presentation of the spiritual and eternal aspects of our Christian faith, and for a more powerful dynamic and a clearer analysis of the steps that lead through darkness unto God.
For this, there is no need to go beyond the pages of the New Testament. The great saints of the past, whose names shine in the heavenly firmament, found all they needed in the Bible, and what sufficed for them, is enough for us. In the following pages those steps are enumerated and explained – however unworthily – that the inquiring soul may be guided in that upward climb and inner experience which culminate in divine union.
F. B. Meyer.