Of this book, based on his lectures at Lake Forest College in 1911. Josiah Royce wrote, "It is one of the easiest of my books to read...it contains the whole sense of me in a brief compass." Here Royce probes the neuralgic point in the philosophy of religion. The essays aim at religious unity and emphasize communal religious experience based on a faith shared by a community's members through their authentic loyalty and deeds of service. It is an urgently needed counterpoint to William James's individualistic views in Varieties of Religious Experience. Through his unique essay on "The Religious Mission of Sorrow," Royce offers a healing remedy for a world suffocating with sufferings.

Foreword by: F.M. Oppenheim