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the ministry. But the more he heard of materialistic preaching according to the scholastic creeds, the greater mystery the Bible became. He could not understand it or comprehend it, and being honest with himself, he would not attempt to teach others to believe a thing that he did not believe himself-so he changed his course of life and was admitted to the Bar and entered upon the practice of the law, which vocation he pursued until his health entirely failed him.

With his nervous system shattered and constitution completely destroyed he started from Kansas City in May, 1912, for Denver, Colorado--which city had been his residence for some years-on arriving at Wray, Colorado, the altitude proved too high for his shattered nervous system so he retreated to Hastings, Nebraska, where he spent the summer. While there this Work was dictated in a sick room, a page or two at a time, as he could collect strength enough to express his ideas and thoughts. He has not possessed the physical strength to read his own manuscript and has had to depend on others to do this for him. If there be immaterial clerical errors in the work, this explanation must be satisfactory to the Reader until they can be corrected in another edition. If there be mistakes or errors-they are clerical and immaterial. The fundamental ideas of the Author are expressed as he desired them.

Some may call this Work vulgar. The Truth can never be vulgar. To the clean, the Truth is always clean. We have dealt with the Truth, as it is in God's Word, in as chaste terms as honesty of purpose would permit.

A word personal as to the Author may not be out of place here, as he will probably be in his grave when this Work reaches the public. He was born on a plantation in North Carolina and is the youngest child of Ruffin R. and Malissa Tapp, and has one brother, L. P. Tapp, Kinston, North Carolina. His mother's maiden name was Dunnagan. Both paternal and maternal sides of his family were slave owners and planters. They belonged to that civilization which challenged the world for morals, honesty and intelligence and which prevailed in the South previous to the Civil War-and has now passed into history. He was born in a southern