Whenever, in the development of any particular science there has been a misapprehension of its appropriate sphere, and especially when wrong principles have been introduced in development, a reconstruction of the whole science is of course demanded. The following treatise has been prepared in view of the assumption, that both these defects exist in important forms in the common treatises on this subject. Every one is aware, that any given intellectual process having for its object the establishment of truth, may fail of its end for one or more of the three following reasons: 1. The process may be based throughout upon a misconception of the subject treated of. 2. Invalid premises may be introduced as the basis of conclusions deduced. 3. Or there may be a want of connection between the premises and the conclusions deduced from them. All are equally aware, also, that every valid process is not only free from each of these defects, but possessed of the opposite excellences. In examining any such process, then, three questions are or should be always put, to wit: Has the author rightly apprehended his subject? Are the premises sound? Is there a valid connection between the premises and conclusions? In answering such questions, everyone feels the need of valid criteria by which he can determine whether the process is or is not valid in each of these particulars, and in one no less than in either of the others. The following treatise has been prepared upon the assumption, that the true and proper sphere of logic is to furnish all these different criteria, and thus to meet in full the real logical necessities of the human mind. ASA MAHAN (1799-1889) was America's foremost Christian educator, reformer, philosopher, and pastor. He was founding president of two colleges and one university, where he was able to inspire numerous reforms, publish authoritative philosophical texts, and promote powerful revivals like his close associate Charles Finney. He led the way on all important fronts while being severely persecuted. He introduced the new curriculum later adopted by Harvard, was the first to instruct and grant liberal college degrees to white and colored women, advised Lincoln during the Civil War, and among many other remarkable achievements, was a father to the early evangelical and holiness movements.

In the judgment of the author of the following treatise, the time has now arrived when the questions at issue between Theism on the one hand, and the various forms of Antitheism on the other, may be permanently settled, and that upon scientific grounds. All these questions now, in reality, stand out before the world in visible dependence upon a single issue, the validity of the human Intelligence as a faculty of world-knowledge. Antitheism, in all its forms, has openly based itself upon the assumption, and this is its final stronghold, that all our world-knowledge, subjective and objective, is exclusively phenomenal, mere appearance, in which no reality of any kind appears; and that, consequently, "the reality existing behind all appearances is, and ever must be, unknown." The fact is also being "known and read of all men," that, this principle being admitted, all questions in regard to causation, proximate or ultimate, are undeniably at an end. "What can we reason but from what we know?";Equally manifest to all sober thinkers has the fact become, that if it be granted that we have a valid knowledge of "the things that are made," the proposition is undeniable that we have an equally valid knowledge of the being and perfections of a personal God, "the Creator of the heavens and the earth. A fundamental aim of the author of this treatise has been not only to subvert utterly the antitheistic philosophy in all its actual and possible forms, and to verify for Theism an immovable foundation; but, also to bring out into distinct isolation the real theistic problem and syllogism in all its varied forms, so that the argument throughout may be seen to be, and to have been, conducted upon truly scientific principles. With these suggestions, the work is commended to the most rigid scrutiny of the friends of truth. ASA MAHAN (1799-1889) was America's foremost Christian educator, reformer, philosopher, and pastor. He was founding president of two colleges and one university, where he was able to inspire numerous reforms, publish authoritative philosophical texts, and promote powerful revivals like his close associate Charles Finney.;He led the way on all important fronts while being severely persecuted. He introduced the new curriculum later adopted by Harvard, was the first to instruct and grant liberal college degrees to white and colored women, advised Lincoln during the Civil War, and among many other remarkable achievements, was a father to the early evangelical and holiness movements.

These lectures contain as full an outline of Theological Study as we have hitherto been able to fill up in our discussions and investigations, during the three years allotted to Theological Instruction in this Institution Oberlin, 1840]. . . My design was at first, not to publish, but barely to print a small number of copies exclusively for the use of the students. But as it was supposed that others would desire to possess them, I have consented to their publication, reminding my readers that they are a bare skeleton of the course of Theological study here pursued. The skeletons of these lectures have heretofore been copied out by each student as a kind of memoranda, to which he might in future refer, to refresh his memory. This has cost so much labor, that the students have earnestly solicited their publication. For their use and benefit, they are therefore principally intended. . . They are designed as memoranda, as the summing up of previous discussions, thought, and investigation, rather than as essays from which Theological information is to be derived. . . It has been no part of my design to relieve the student from the necessity of deep study, research, and original investigation upon every topic in Theology. . . I have intended so to shape these skeletons, that those who understand them, should have a general, and pretty thorough acquaintance with Theology, as a science, so as not to be at a loss for an answer to almost any question upon Theological subjects. To the superficial and unpracticed Theologian, many things that I have said, will of course be unintelligible. But those who think, and love to think, will, I hope, be able to understand them. CHARLES G. FINNEY (1792-1875)was America's foremost evangelist. Over half a million people were soundly converted under his personal ministry in a day when there was no TV or microphones. He was also an excellent theologian, philosopher, educator, pastor and reformer while professor of theology and president of Oberlin College. Harvard's Perry Miller said, "Finney led America out of the eighteenth century." He is remembered, according to Harvard's W. G. McLoughlin, for his "textbook on how to promote revivals of religion. This book is the perennial classic to which all succeeding generations of revivalists have turned for authority and inspiration." He was also a father to the evangelical and holiness movements.

The following Treatise presents the sum of a course of Lectures, which, for six or eight years past, I have been in the habit of delivering to successive classes, on the subject of Intellectual Philosophy. One thing I may say in relation to this subject, without boasting. No class have yet passed through this course, without becoming deeply interested in the science of Mental Philosophy; and, in their judgment, receiving great benefit from the truths developed, as well as from the method of development which was adopted. Hence the desire has been very generally expressed by those who have attended the course of instruction, as well as by others who have become acquainted with the general features of the system taught, to have it presented to the public in a form adapted to popular reading. In conformity to such suggestions, as well as to the permanent convictions of my own mind, the following Treatise has been prepared. In preparing it, it has been my aim to reject light from no source whatever from which it could be obtained, and at the same time to maintain the real prerogative of manly independence of thought. Since the publication of the first edition of this work, the author has had the benefit resulting from successive years in teaching the same, and of a careful reading of other works upon the same subject. In this manner, he has been enabled to perceive defects that needed correction in the work, as first presented. The work is now given to the public, as the result of his mature reflections upon this fundamental science. ASA MAHAN (1799-1889) was America's foremost Christian educator, reformer, philosopher, and pastor. He was founding president of two colleges and oneuniversity, where he was able to inspire numerous reforms, publish authoritative philosophical texts, and promote powerful revivals like his close associate Charles Finney. He led the way on all important fronts while being severely persecuted. He introduced the new curriculum later adopted by Harvard, was the first to instruct and grant liberal college degrees to white and colored women, advised Lincoln during the Civil War, and among many other remarkable achievements, was a father to the early evangelical and holiness movements.

In the judgment of the author of the following treatise, the time has now arrived when the questions at issue between Theism on the one hand, and the various forms of Antitheism on the other, may be permanently settled, and that upon scientific grounds. All these questions now, in reality, stand out before the world in visible dependence upon a single issue, the validity of the human Intelligence as a faculty of world-knowledge. Antitheism, in all its forms, has openly based itself upon the assumption, and this is its final stronghold, that all our world-knowledge, subjective and objective, is exclusively phenomenal, mere appearance, in which no reality of any kind appears; and that, consequently, "the reality existing behind all appearances is, and ever must be, unknown." The fact is also being "known and read of all men," that, this principle being admitted, all questions in regard to causation, proximate or ultimate, are undeniably at an end. "What can we reason but from what we know?" Equally manifest to all sober thinkers has the fact become, that if it be granted that we have a valid knowledge of "the things that are made," the proposition is undeniable that we have an equally valid knowledge of the being and perfections of a personal God, "the Creator of the heavens and the earth. A fundamental aim of the author of this treatise has been not only to subvert utterly the antitheistic philosophy in all its actual and possible forms, and to verify for Theism an immovable foundation; but, also to bring out into distinct isolation the real theistic problem and syllogism in all its varied forms, so that the argument throughout may be seen to be, and to have been, conducted upon trulyscientific principles. With these suggestions, the work is commended to the most rigid scrutiny of the friends of truth. ASA MAHAN (1799-1889) was America's foremost Christian educator, reformer, philosopher, and pastor. He was founding president of two colleges and one university, where he was able to inspire numerous reforms, publish authoritative philosophical texts, and promote powerful revivals like his close associate Charles Finney. He led the way on all important fronts while being severely persecuted. He introduced the new curriculum later adopted by Harvard, was the first to instruct and grant liberal college degrees to white and colored women, advised Lincoln during the Civil War, and among many other remarkable achievements, was a father to the early evangelical and holiness movements.

Believers in Jesus, as we read in the Scriptures, are "all children of the light, and children of the day," and are privileged to "walk in the light, as God is the light," God Himself being "their everlasting light, and their God their glory." Thus "walking in the light," they "have fellowship one with another;" and more than this, "with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ." Abiding in this light and in this fellowship, their "joy is full," "out of weakness they are made strong," in all conditions of existence they find perfect content, and are "more than conquerors through Him that hath loved us," and "having all sufficiency for all things, are abundantly furnished for every good work." If all this is not true of any believer, it is because he is living below his revealed privileges, and is thus living because he does not "know the things which are freely given us of God." It contradicts every true idea of Christian character, to suppose that a true believer in Christ will "walk in darkness," knowing that he may "walk in the light;" will remain weak, knowing that he may be girded with "everlasting strength;" and will continue "carnal, sold under sin," knowing that he may enjoy "the glorious liberty of the sons of God." The specific and exclusive object of the following treatise is to make known to all who would know and understand their privileges as "the sons of God" and "believers in Jesus," the forms of divine knowledge above referred to. To the prayerful examination of all who are "walking in the light," or are inquiring after the light, the work is commended, with the fervent desire and prayer of the author, that "their joy may be full." ASA MAHAN (1799-1889) was America's foremost Christian educator, reformer, philosopher, and pastor. He was founding president of two colleges and one university, where he was able to inspire numerous reforms, publish authoritative philosophical texts, and promote powerful revivals like his close associate Charles Finney. He led the way on all important fronts while being severely persecuted. He introduced the new curriculum later adopted by Harvard, was the first to instruct and grant liberal college degrees to white and colored women, advised Lincoln during the Civil War, and among many other remarkable achievements, was a father to the early evangelical and holiness movements.

The object of the following treatise is to furnish, not only for College classes, but especially for our Academies and High Schools a complete system of Mental Science. Two facts render the treatises in common use unadapted, particularly to the two purposes last named. Such treatises, in the first place, are too large for common use. Then, with hardly any exceptions, they treat of but one department of the mind, the Intellect. The object of the following treatise is to remedy both these defects-to furnish a work sufficiently ample for a clear elucidation of the whole subject, and, at the same time, so concise as not to over burden the mind of the pupil, on the one hand, and, on the other, to furnish a full knowledge of the entire system of Mental Science, the Philosophy, not of the Intellect merely, but also of the Sensibility and Will. It is fully believed by the Author, and he states this as the result of some thirty years' experience in teaching the science, that every pupil, not only in our College classes, but every advanced student in our Academies and High Schools, is capable of fully mastering this treatise, and that when he has done so, he will have attained not only to a distinct understanding of the different faculties of the mind, but also of the varied functions of each of those faculties. ASA MAHAN (1799-1889) was America's foremost Christian educator, reformer, philosopher, and pastor. He was founding president of two colleges and one university, where he was able to inspire numerous reforms, publish authoritative philosophical texts, and promote powerful revivals like his close associate Charles Finney. He led the way on all important fronts while being severelypersecuted. He introduced the new curriculum later adopted by Harvard, was the first to instruct and grant liberal college degrees to white and colored women, advised Lincoln during the Civil War, and among many other remarkable achievements, was a father to the early evangelical and holiness movements.

Every one is fully aware of the fact, that of all subjects which it concerns man to investigate, that involved in these two questions is of paramount importance, namely, What ought I to be? and, How ought I to act? The scientific solution and elucidation of these questions, constitutes the peculiar sphere of the science of Moral Philosophy. A treatise on Moral Philosophy that does justice to its subject, will, of course, tax to the utmost the powers of the hardest student who attempts fully to fathom the depths, and ascend the heights of thought to which it attains; and at the same time, it will so elucidate that subject, that the ordinary reader who will devote adequate time and attention to its perusal, will study it with much interest and profit. Such it has been the fixed aim of the author to render the following treatise. He designed to render it a book for the student, and at the same time, a book for the people. This treatise was not prepared for the thoughtless, who take up such a work, glance, it may be, at its contents, and then lay it aside, as too deep for them, individuals whose minds float at random upon the surface of things, without looking seriously into the depths beneath, or to the heights above for the purpose of understanding the great realities within and around them, realities among which they are to have their eternal dwelling place, and who especially never ponder the questions, What am I? Where am I? and Whither am I bound? What ought I to be? What ought I to do? and What will be my destiny, as the consequence of being and doing what I ought, or ought not? It was prepared, on the other hand, for thinkers, into whose hearts wisdom has entered, and unto whose souls knowledge is pleasant. ASA MAHAN (1800-1889) was America's foremost Christian educator, reformer, philosopher, and pastor. He was founding president of two colleges and one university, where he was able to inspire numerous reforms, publish authoritative philosophical texts, and promote powerful revivals like his close associate Charles Finney. He led the way on all important fronts while being severely persecuted. He introduced the new curriculum later adopted by Harvard, was the first to instruct and grant liberal college degrees to white and colored women, advised Lincoln during the Civil War, and among many other remarkable achievements, was a father to the early evangelical and holiness movements.

The contents of this convicting book are from Finney's unpublished lecture notes. Topics include personal qualifications for the study of theology, advantages gained from this study, things to be avoided, primary and secondary departments of the mind, immortality, rules of evidence, proofs for the existence of God, natural and moral attributes of God. In teaching theology, it is no part of my design merely to lecture to you, and help you to truth without your own efforts. This would do you little good, nay, it might greatly injure you. I would merely help you to study, help you when you endeavor to help yourselves; suggest to stimulate and guide your efforts rather than dispense with them. . . . Take care that you keep your hearts with all diligence, and that your hearts keep pace with your intellectual improvement. If you do not make a self-application of the truth as fast as you learn it, if you do not obey it, it will ultimately blind instead of enlighten you. You must live up to your convictions, or the study of theology will greatly and fatally harden you. Therefore be careful that you grieve not, resist not, quench not the Holy Spirit. Study on your knees. Go to God with every position that is established, and pray him to write the truth in your heart; and rest not till it be adopted by you as your own, as a truth to influence you, to have dominion over you; and as these truths are developed in your intellect one after the other, and established, let it be settled that in the midst of them, and in conformity with them, you are to live and move and have your being. If you do this the study of theology will make you a mellow, anointed, devoted, useful man of God; if you do it not, you will become hardened and reprobate. And of all the reprobate minds in existence, they seem to be the most hardened who have studied theology and gone through the course of theology without receiving the truth into their hearts. CHARLES G. FINNEY (1792-1875) was America's foremost evangelist. Over half a million people were soundly converted under his personal ministry in a day when there was no TV or microphones. He was also an excellent theologian, philosopher, educator, pastor and reformer while professor of theology and president of Oberlin College. Harvard's Perry Miller said, "Finney led America out of the eighteenth century." He is remembered, according to Harvard's W. G. McLoughlin, for his "textbook on how to promote revivals of religion. This book is the perennial classic to which all succeeding generations of revivalists have turned for authority and inspiration." He was also a father to the evangelical and holiness movements.

The object of the following treatise is to furnish, not only for College classes, but especially for our Academies and High Schools a complete system of Mental Science. Two facts render the treatises in common use unadapted, particularly to the two purposes last named. Such treatises, in the first place, are too large for common use. Then, with hardly any exceptions, they treat of but one department of the mind, the Intellect. The object of the following treatise is to remedy both these defects-to furnish a work sufficiently ample for a clear elucidation of the whole subject, and, at the same time, so concise as not to over burden the mind of the pupil, on the one hand, and, on the other, to furnish a full knowledge of the entire system of Mental Science, the Philosophy, not of the Intellect merely, but also of the Sensibility and Will. It is fully believed by the Author, and he states this as the result of some thirty years' experience in teaching the science, that every pupil, not only in our College classes, but every advanced student in our Academies and High Schools, is capable of fully mastering this treatise, and that when he has done so, he will have attained not only to a distinct understanding of the different faculties of the mind, but also of the varied functions of each of those faculties. ASA MAHAN (1799-1889) was America's foremost Christian educator, reformer, philosopher, and pastor. He was founding president of two colleges and one university, where he was able to inspire numerous reforms, publish authoritative philosophical texts, and promote powerful revivals like his close associate Charles Finney. He led the way on all important fronts while being severely persecuted. He introduced the new curriculum later adopted by Harvard, was the first to instruct and grant liberal college degrees to white and colored women, advised Lincoln during the Civil War, and among many other remarkable achievements, was a father to the early evangelical and holiness movements.

These lectures contain as full an outline of Theological Study as we have hitherto been able to fill up in our discussions and investigations, during the three years allotted to Theological Instruction in this Institution Oberlin, 1840]. . . My design was at first, not to publish, but barely to print a small number of copies exclusively for the use of the students. But as it was supposed that others would desire to possess them, I have consented to their publication, reminding my readers that they are a bare skeleton of the course of Theological study here pursued. The skeletons of these lectures have heretofore been copied out by each student as a kind of memoranda, to which he might in future refer, to refresh his memory. This has cost so much labor, that the students have earnestly solicited their publication. For their use and benefit, they are therefore principally intended. . . They are designed as memoranda, as the summing up of previous discussions, thought, and investigation, rather than as essays from which Theological information is to be derived. . . It has been no part of my design to relieve the student from the necessity of deep study, research, and original investigation upon every topic in Theology. . . I have intended so to shape these skeletons, that those who understand them, should have a general, and pretty thorough acquaintance with Theology, as a science, so as not to be at a loss for an answer to almost any question upon Theological subjects. To the superficial and unpracticed Theologian, many things that I have said, will of course be unintelligible. But those who think, and love to think, will, I hope, be able to understand them. CHARLES G. FINNEY (1792-1875)was America's foremost evangelist. Over half a million people were soundly converted under his personal ministry in a day when there was no TV or microphones. He was also an excellent theologian, philosopher, educator, pastor and reformer while professor of theology and president of Oberlin College. Harvard's Perry Miller said, "Finney led America out of the eighteenth century." He is remembered, according to Harvard's W. G. McLoughlin, for his "textbook on how to promote revivals of religion. This book is the perennial classic to which all succeeding generations of revivalists have turned for authority and inspiration." He was also a father to the evangelical and holiness movements.

During my religious life, I have had a very intimate association with the various religious, moral, social, and political questions and movements which have agitated and moulded thought in America and the world at large, and with many of the leading minds who gave form and direction to these great movements. As a student of theology and Biblical science, and of all the sciences, as a preacher of the everlasting Gospel, and as a Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy and Theology, I have had occasion to ponder, and weigh, and determine, with great care and circumspection, the various problems of natural, mental, moral, and theological science, together with the doctrines of the diverse schools in philosophy and religion. As a theologian I have, as the result of the most careful and candid inquiry and research, passed from the extreme bounds of Calvinism to the quite opposite pole of the evangelical faith. . . . Here, as the result of all my inquiries and diverse experiences, I find myself, on this my eighty-second birthday, in the full and blissful assurance of the Divine origin and authority of the Holy Scriptures of both Testaments, of the doctrine of the Sacred Trinity, of atonement by the blood of Christ, of regeneration, of justification and sanctification by faith, of the baptism of the Holy Ghost, of immortality, and "eternal judgment;" and holding all these and kindred truths in "the full assurance of faith," "full assurance of hope," and "full assurance of understanding," I have been urged by individuals in whose judgment I place great confidence, and who have had an intimate acquaintance with my habits of self-reflection, to write out, for the benefit of the Church and the world, my own intellectual, moral, and spiritual autobiography. After prayerful consideration I yielded to such advice. Hence the following treatise. ASA MAHAN (1799-1889) was America's foremost Christian educator, reformer, philosopher, and pastor. He was founding president of two colleges and one university, where he was able to inspire numerous reforms, publish authoritative philosophical texts, and promote powerful revivals like his close associate Charles Finney. He led the way on all important fronts while being severely persecuted. He introduced the new curriculum later adopted by Harvard, was the first to instruct and grant liberal college degrees to white and colored women, advised Lincoln during the Civil War, and among many other remarkable achievements, was a father to the early evangelical and holiness movements.

Believers in Jesus, as we read in the Scriptures, are "all children of the light, and children of the day," and are privileged to "walk in the light, as God is the light," God Himself being "their everlasting light, and their God their glory." Thus "walking in the light," they "have fellowship one with another;" and more than this, "with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ." Abiding in this light and in this fellowship, their "joy is full," "out of weakness they are made strong," in all conditions of existence they find perfect content, and are "more than conquerors through Him that hath loved us," and "having all sufficiency for all things, are abundantly furnished for every good work." If all this is not true of any believer, it is because he is living below his revealed privileges, and is thus living because he does not "know the things which are freely given us of God." It contradicts every true idea of Christian character, to suppose that a true believer in Christ will "walk in darkness," knowing that he may "walk in the light;" will remain weak, knowing that he may be girded with "everlasting strength;" and will continue "carnal, sold under sin," knowing that he may enjoy "the glorious liberty of the sons of God." The specific and exclusive object of the following treatise is to make known to all who would know and understand their privileges as "the sons of God" and "believers in Jesus," the forms of divine knowledge above referred to. To the prayerful examination of all who are "walking in the light," or are inquiring after the light, the work is commended, with the fervent desire and prayer of the author, that "their joy may be full." ASA MAHAN (1799-1889) was America's foremost Christian educator, reformer, philosopher, and pastor. He was founding president of two colleges and one university, where he was able to inspire numerous reforms, publish authoritative philosophical texts, and promote powerful revivals like his close associate Charles Finney. He led the way on all important fronts while being severely persecuted. He introduced the new curriculum later adopted by Harvard, was the first to instruct and grant liberal college degrees to white and colored women, advised Lincoln during the Civil War, and among many other remarkable achievements, was a father to the early evangelical and holiness movements.

When editors have been changing Finney's words in their republications of his works over the last one hundred and thirty years, it is essential in understanding the man and his success that republications without changes be given once again to the public. This new edition does that. While the text is from the final 1868 revised edition, numerous footnotes are added that show the changes Finney made from the original 1834 and 1835 editions of these lectures. Many of the changes made in more recent republications are also noticed. From Finney's Preface: In revising these lectures] for a new edition, I have done little more than correct the phraseology in a few instances, add a few footnotes, and replace the last two Lectures by newly-written ones on the same texts and prepared especially for this edition. . . These Lectures have been translated in the Welsh and French languages, and have been extensively circulated wherever the English or either of those languages is understood. One house in London published 80,000 copies in English. They are still in type and in market in Europe, and I have the great satisfaction of knowing that they have been made a great blessing to thousands of souls. Consequently, I have not thought it wise to recast them for the sake of giving them a more attractive form. God has owned and blessed the reading of them as they have been, and with the exceptions above noticed, I have given them to the present and coming generations. If the reader will peruse and remember the foregoing preface, he will understand what I said of the church and some of the ministers, and why I said it. I beseech my brethren not to take amiss what I have said, but rather to be assured that every sentence has been spoken in love, and often with a sorrowful heart. May God continue to add His blessing to the reading of these Lectures. CHARLES G. FINNEY (1792-1875) was America's foremost evangelist. Over half a million people were soundly converted under his personal ministry in a day when there was no TV or microphones. He was also an excellent theologian, philosopher, educator, pastor and reformer while professor of theology and president of Oberlin College. Harvard's Perry Miller said, "Finney led America out of the eighteenth century." He is remembered, according to Harvard's W. G. McLoughlin, for his "textbook on how to promote revivals of religion. This book is the perennial classic to which all succeeding generations of revivalists have turned for authority and inspiration." He was also a father to the evangelical and holiness movements.

When editors have been changing Finney's words in their republications of his works over the last one hundred and thirty years, it is essential in understanding the man and his success that republications without changes be given once again to the public. This new edition does that. While the text is from the final 1868 revised edition, numerous footnotes are added that show the changes Finney made from the original 1834 and 1835 editions of these lectures. Many of the changes made in more recent republications are also noticed. From Finney's Preface: In revising these lectures] for a new edition, I have done little more than correct the phraseology in a few instances, add a few footnotes, and replace the last two Lectures by newly-written ones on the same texts and prepared especially for this edition. . . These Lectures have been translated in the Welsh and French languages, and have been extensively circulated wherever the English or either of those languages is understood. One house in London published 80,000 copies in English. They are still in type and in market in Europe, and I have the great satisfaction of knowing that they have been made a great blessing to thousands of souls. Consequently, I have not thought it wise to recast them for the sake of giving them a more attractive form. God has owned and blessed the reading of them as they have been, and with the exceptions above noticed, I have given them to the present and coming generations. If the reader will peruse and remember the foregoing preface, he will understand what I said of the church and some of the ministers, and why I said it. I beseech my brethren not to take amiss what I have said, but rather to be assured that every sentence has been spoken in love, and often with a sorrowful heart. May God continue to add His blessing to the reading of these Lectures. CHARLES G. FINNEY (1792-1875) was America's foremost evangelist. Over half a million people were soundly converted under his personal ministry in a day when there was no TV or microphones. He was also an excellent theologian, philosopher, educator, pastor and reformer while professor of theology and president of Oberlin College. Harvard's Perry Miller said, "Finney led America out of the eighteenth century." He is remembered, according to Harvard's W. G. McLoughlin, for his "textbook on how to promote revivals of religion. This book is the perennial classic to which all succeeding generations of revivalists have turned for authority and inspiration." He was also a father to the evangelical and holiness movements.