What and Where is God? A Human Answer to the Deep Religious Cry of the Modern Soul. Richard La Rue Swain

The foreground of this book has largely to do with the answering of vital questions that have sprung from the suffering souls of men and women with whom the author has been sympathetically associated. Considerable attention has been given to the natural sequence of these questions in order that the answers might form a more or less orderly line of discussion. While the method of answering a particular set of questions does not permit of a strictly logical treatment of the themes, yet in the background there is a definite and concrete picture of God, of the universe, and of man as he is enfolded in God's world.

The chapters on immortality contain a further discussion of God, man, and the universe as they move on in endless time. To know "what and where" God is, it is necessary to understand how man and the universe exist in God, and what God purposes to achieve through them.

If we are to reach people's minds, their questions are of supreme importance because they show where the mind is focused. The average person can, as a rule, proceed no farther with a subject until his main difficulty is removed. Therefore, we have preferred the question to the natural division of the subject, believing that the reader would be able to see the logic that is beneath it all.

The chapters on the Bible are not closely related to the rest of the book, but as the Scriptures contain the "specifications" and "blue-prints" from God, it seemed important to include a description of how we must approach them if we are not to misread their spiritual content.

Though the material of this volume has been given in extemporaneous addresses, yet no part of it has been reduced to writing until now. Its appearance in book form is in response to many requests. Especially helpful has been the encouragement of Professor Douglas Clyde Macintosh of Yale University who has kindly read the manuscript and made valuable suggestions.

R. L. S.

306 Golden Hill,

Bridgeport, Conn.

Why does God leave His very existence in doubt by forever hiding Himself?

If there were a God would He not make Himself known in such a way that no one could possibly doubt His existence?

Why should we be expected to love and obey a God whose existence is still a subject of discussion?

Could a righteous and loving Father leave any of His children in doubt of His existence?

While I was dining one day with a young minister and his wife, the latter disclosed to me her religious state of mind. Said she:

"I have no God! They have taken Him away and I do not know where to find Him. My childhood conception of a Man-God on a throne in heaven is gone—and I think rightly gone; but I have nothing to take its place. I hear them speak of an immanent God; of a God who fills all nature. And I have no objection to this except that it brings no relief. Nature is so inexpressibly vast and complex that, to my mind, a God who fills all nature is so infinitely big and spread out that I can neither know Him nor love Him. He is altogether too attenuated for me; besides, this makes Him so much everywhere that He seems to be nowhere. Here I am, without a God, working myself nearly to death in a great Church; and my heart is breaking for a Father to whom I can go, as I once did, with all my hopes and fears. Moreover, all my young women

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