'On Life' and 'What is religion?' were published by the Fee Age Press in England; a publishing house set up to side-step the censorship of Tolstoy in Russia, and to give him an international voice. So what is life? 'Life is the sum of functions which resist death, ' says the scientist. But is it more than that, asks Tolstoy in 'On Life' - a philosophical and religious search for an understanding of life beyond scientific formulae. For Tolstoy, the basic contradiction for humanity is this: people aim solely for their own well being, but discover along the way that their own well being depends also on the well being of others. A further discovery by such people is that decay, old age and death attend their every step. Such basic human truths are the context for Tolstoy's search for happiness, in which Buddhist, Jewish, Stoic and Christian views are considered, as well as those of science. Tolstoy believes that fear of death is merely the consciousness of the unsolved contradiction of life; a sign of a carnal or animal mentality, which mistakenly takes part of life to be the whole. Tolstoy believes that individual well-being must be renounced and replaced by our 'reasonable consciousness', which points the way to true happiness, and brings human re-birth. 'What is religion?' is a collection of articles and letters written by the mature Tolstoy of 1901 and 1902. Here is a variety of subject matter, including a book review of a German novel; Tolstoy's response to his excommunication by the church; an attack on army recruitment and training and reflections on a recent political assassination. The title piece - 'What is religion?' is the most substantial, in which Tolstoy provides the following definition: 'True religion is the establishment by man of a relation to the infinite life around him; as long as connecting his life with this infinitude and directing his conduct, is also in agreement with his reason and human knowledge.'

Many times in our lives things happen to us that we know without a shadow of a doubt that God intervened. Matthew 1: 23. Most of the time we do not realize until after the experience for months and years later that God intervened. Without the Holy Spirit we could miss the work of the Lord altogether. Over a period of years, I have been a witness of the Lord. The Lord has spoken with me to write down these experiences to bless, encourage and build faith in many. To stay humble, anointed, stating each experience, and the miracle way the Lord himself has performed them in my life. Most of all let them know. I am alive: yes Jesus is alive and working the same miracles today as He did when He was on earth. He is the same yesterday, today and forever more. He is Omnipresent, Omnipotent, and Omniscient.

The first half of this two part book tells the story of an ordinary boy enriched by his mother's faith yet torn apart by a bitter divorce. Maintaining his religious underpinnings, Mark struggles through the divorce and graduates from college with a degree in finance. This takes him to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange where he makes millions of dollars, marries his wife and retires at the age of 36. Shortly after, Mark received a Master's degree in Theology setting the foundation for the remainder of his life. The first half of the book ends with the death his forth child, Kevin, which becomes the catalyst for a tremendous spiritual conversion.

The second half of the book walks the reader through that conversion documenting the steps taken to accomplish it. A discussion of physics is used to set up a foundation for further explanations in theology. This discussion results in a need to re-evaluate the meaning of Mark 8:29 when Jesus asks: "Who do you say that I am?" The result is a shift from orthodox religion to a focus on Sophian Gnosticism. Time is spent focusing on Kabbalah and The Tree of Life, and on a special sign Mark created called the "Sign of the Tree." Kabbalistic teachings on reincarnation and suffering are explored. Mark applies these teachings to his life by leaving the material world behind, going to work at a homeless shelter, and becoming a hospice volunteer.

The book of Soulties is about a litte girl who from the beginning of her life of entering into the world is faced with some very difficult challenges. This is the first time that God began performing miracles, but it would not be the last Thankfully she comes from a family of believers who knew how to go before the Lord and have the faith to believe that He would perform miracles, but as she grew up her life began taking turns that would lead her astray until her life was plagued with some serious health issues and after being told to prepare for her funeral did she learn that this was the first time in her life that she had to go to God for herself. This book is about why the enemy tries to attack as soon as we enter into this world and how God is fighting for us to make the right decisions because he knows what He has in store for our lives It's all about exposing the enemy and moving forward into the things of God.

As one of the most revered Baptist preachers of his time, Charles Haddon Spurgeon's eventful and prolific life and career offer outstanding inspiration for all Christians to this day. In the first volume of Spurgeon's autobiography, we witness his rise from modest obscurity, embarking on a long road toward fame and admiration as a representative of God on Earth. A lengthy, lively and detailed biography is helped by the fact that Spurgeon was an effusive and prolific talker and author of many documents: he would recount incidents of his life on paper and in speeches regularly. We find in this volume the famous instance in which the young Spurgeon encountered his call from God. When Spurgeon was aged fifteen, a violent snowstorm forced him from his route into a Methodist church where he felt the Lord beckon him to service. After this, he undertook parochial study with great fervor, and quickly became a respected teacher in his local Sunday School, gaining the nickname 'the boy-preacher of the Fens'.

A rare, intimate account of a world-renowned Buddhist monk’s near-death experience and the life-changing wisdom he gained from it.

In In Love With the World, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, one of the world's most respected leaders of Tibetan meditation, shares his personal story of how he explored the deepest, most hidden aspects of his being, and the near-death experience that came to define his meditation practice and teaching forever. Moving, beautiful and suffused with local colour, Rinpoche shares the invaluable lessons learned during his four-year wandering retreat and the meditation practices that sustained him, showing how we can all transform our fear of dying into joyful living.

The autobiographical novel "O Love How Deep" by Diana Maryon contains striking insights into relations between the sexes, Christian spirituality, and mastering disappointment. I hope that I shall see it in print in some form in due course. J.I. Packer, Author and Theologian

"I knew from the first 100 pages that I was going to be enthralled with this story, and so I was, right to the end. I literally couldn't put it down. Of course, it doesn't seem like the end because I still want to know more about Hope.

The loving portraits of the author s two children were the highlight for me. Why that is so, I don't know. Perhaps the honesty about motherhood.

It is a fine adult-Christian book and should enjoy a wide readership." Mary Razzell, Author

After twenty-six-year-old Australian David Carpenter, a psychiatrist and neurological researcher himself, had a breakdown in his first year at Cambridge, his therapist told him, Go into the Anglican Chaplaincy, investigate Christianity, and have a love-affair with a nice Christian girl. He did precisely that.

Diana was only twenty. They grew so close that when, after four years, she married someone else, he returned home devastated. They did not meet again for eight years. He realised then that he still loved her, and she him. He asked her to break her marriage for him. Instead, she sent him away indefinitely.

In her last letter she begged him to give her up. She said that Oxford had rejected her dissertation. She was thirty-three, with her academic career now shattered.

This is the poignant true story of three hyper-intelligent, cosmopolitan, and highly-educated people fighting their way through to genuine faith, hope and love in the modern world.

"Second Printing ERRATA, corrected in the Third Printing"

P. 5 para. 2, l. 1 ?your: Your

P. 103 para. 11, l. 3 Great-Granny: dear Granny

P. 177 para. 1, l. 10 departement: departement underlined

P. 188 para. 1, l. 4 other: among other

P. 407 para. 3 l. 1 1999: 1997

For the first time we see, through the theological mind of Adomnan, the mission of Columba to bring the Kingdom of God to Pict and Scot. The question is, was Adomnan simply following fashion (miracles proved sanctity, and thereby authorized the cult and its politically minded promoters), or did he also have a more sophisticated understanding of the nature and function of these authority-providing marvels that he systematizes uniquely: prophecy, miracles of power, visions? This book surveys approaches to the marvelous, tracing the intriguing recent growth in scholarly open-mindedness, and shows Plummer's 1910 hypothesis of the origin of Irish saga to be inadequate. Adomnan identifies the phenomena firmly as signs of the inbreaking eschatological Kingdom of God. Directed by the Spirit of prophecy, in miracles of transforming power, with angels and glimpses of the glory of God's presence, the conditions of the new earth are made tantalizingly present in sixth-century Scotland. The Spirit bringing the Kingdom is the mission of the church. How this is present in his Life recasts the missionary identity of Columba from a new perspective and poses questions for the task of the church today.

During a career spanning sixty years, the Reverend Billy Graham s resonant voice and chiseled profile entered the living rooms of millions of Americans with a message that called for personal transformation through God s grace. How did a lanky farm kid from North Carolina become an evangelist hailed by the media as America s pastor ? Why did listeners young and old pour out their grief and loneliness in letters to a man they knew only through televised Crusades in faraway places like Madison Square Garden? More than a conventional biography, Grant Wacker s interpretive study deepens our understanding of why Billy Graham has mattered so much to so many.

Beginning with tent revivals in the 1940s, Graham transformed his born-again theology into a moral vocabulary capturing the fears and aspirations of average Americans. He possessed an uncanny ability to appropriate trends in the wider culture and engaged boldly with the most significant developments of his time, from communism and nuclear threat to poverty and civil rights. The enduring meaning of his career, in Wacker s analysis, lies at the intersection of Graham s own creative agency and the forces shaping modern America.

Wacker paints a richly textured portrait: a self-deprecating servant of God and self-promoting media mogul, a simple family man and confidant of presidents, a plainspoken preacher and the Protestant pope. America s Pastor "reveals how this Southern fundamentalist grew, fitfully, into a capacious figure at the center of spiritual life for millions of Christians around the world."

In spite of all the stories about Germany during Hitler's heyday, virtually nothing has been written about the 105 Marian Apparitions that occurred from 1937 - 1940. The sightings happened in Heede, a village close to the Dutch border and less than twenty miles from the birthplace of author Hans Rolfes. Totally unexpected, not unlike what took place in Lourdes, the sightings were seen by four local girls. This raised the ire in Berlin to such an extent that the girls, then 11 to 13, were placed in a mental institution and a hospital for ten weeks. Hitler's obsessive interest was the industrial behemoth Krupp and its nearby firing range, where the "Big Bertha" rattled dishes in the author's home as it threw one-ton shells airborne. The events in Heede, so good, so pure, so hard-to-explain had no value for him. Today he and his ilk are gone, but tens of thousands of Christians flock annually to the area. The veil of silence surrounding Heede was lifted only recently, with its official recognition as a Marian Prayer Site. Many more events are described, including the author's unbelievable experience when he and other boys investigated an Allied bomb that suddenly, precipitously, exploded.... Hans G. Rolfes is a retired professional engineer who lives in Westchester, N.Y. He was a senior consultant for General Foods for a quarter century-the basis for his book, General Foods, America's Premier Food Company. He has visited and studied at the apparition site in Heede, Germany, many times.

Wife No. 19 is the compelling, informative and emotionally fraught biography of Ann Eliza Young, a member and wife within the Mormon church during the 19th century. Young sets out to chronicle a lengthy expos of the various misdeeds she witnessed or was personally part of. She describes the character of the founder and prophet of the Mormon Church, Joseph Smith, in the context of his interpersonal relationships. The gradual emergence of polygamy, and its uptake among the higher ranking members of the church, is detailed. Although the title highlights the polygamous relationships for which Mormonism gained notoriety, this book does not shy away from the other scandals or controversies. For example; the means via which Brigham Young dishonestly relieved his followers of their money, possessions and cattle via a number of schemes, and the frequent use of the local Native American populations as scapegoats.

"God's Messengers From the Mountains" is the book that I have used to attempt to chart the course of Baptist work in Tennessee, North Georgia, and North Carolina. I have written some information about some of the men who have demonstrated deep dedication to their call from the eternal God to preach the Gospel. It is my hope and prayer that this book will indeed bring glory and honor to God as we remember these people who have demonstrated pungent conviction doing the work of the Kingdom.

Son of a Preacher Man is a deeply personal and profound exploration of faith and self-realisation. Never experiencing God through the Anglican Church, Matthew Gregorowski embarks on a journey that is as much about understanding his father's calling as it is about discovering one's own path to purpose and fulfilment.

Taking up Vedic meditation as a way to manage his snowballing anxiety, he finally meets God on his own terms. But most surprising of all is that it unlocks the secret to an entirely new way of living.

Borne of the hope it may inspire others to realise their true potential, Son of a Preacher Man offers a unique perspective on finding peace and purpose in life, regardless of one's circumstances, and a compelling narrative about the transformative power of spirituality.