nizing struggle.
I don't suppose ten men have ever read them through, or, perhaps,
ever will, but these are the real story of the chief work of my inner
life."

I am one of the few men who have read both these books with scrupulous
care, and yet were it not for what my friend told me of their profound
significance to him, I should scarcely have been interested enough in
their contents to read them through. At the same time, I _know_ that
the men who, from the standpoint of their professionally religious
complacency would have condemned Major Powell, never spent
one-thousandth part the time, nor felt one ten-thousandth the real
solicitude that he did about seeking "the way, the truth, and the
life."

Another friend in Chicago was Dr. M.H. Lackersteen, openly denounced
as an agnostic, and even as an infidel, by some zealous sectaries.
Yet Dr. Lackersteen had personally translated the whole of the Greek
Testament, and several other sacred books of the Hebrews and Hindoos,
in his intense desire to satisfy the demands of his own soul for
the Truth. He was the soul of honor, the very personification of
sincerity, and as much above some of his critics--whom I well knew--in
these virtues, as they were above the scum of the slums.

The longer I live and study men the more I am compelled to believe
that religion is a personal matter between oneself and God and is more
of the spirit than most people have yet conceived. It is well known
to those who have read my books and heard my lectures on the Old
Franciscan Missions of California, that I revere the memory of Padres
Junipero Serra, Palou, Crespi, Catala, Peyri, and others of the
founders of these missions. I have equal veneration for the goodness
of many Catholic priests, nuns, and laymen of to-day. Yet I am not
a Catholic, though zealous sectaries of Protestantism--even of the
church to which I am supposed to belong--sometimes fiercely assail
me for my open commendation of these men of that faith. They are
_worried_ lest I lean too closely towards Catholicism, and ultimately
become one of that fold. Others, who hear my good words in favor of
what appeals to me as noble and uplifting in the lives of those of
other faiths of which they do not approve, worry over and condemn my
"breadth" of belief. Indeed, I have many friends who give themselves
an immense lot of altogether unnecessary worry about this matter. They
have labelled themselves according to some denominational tag,