The wakeful shepherd, tending his flocks, beholds from the mountain’s top the first faint morning beam ere cometh the risen day.  So from Soul’s loftier summits shines the pale star to prophet-shepherd, and it traverses night, over to where the young child lies, in cradled obscurity, that shall waken a world.  Over the night of error dawn the morning beams and guiding star of Truth, and “the wise men” are led by it to Science, which repeats the eternal harmony that it reproduced, in proof of immortality.  The time for thinkers has come; and the time for revolutions, ecclesiastical and civil, must come.  Truth, independent of doctrines or time-honored systems, stands at the threshold of history.  Contentment with the past, or the cold conventionality of custom, may no longer shut the door on science; though empires fall, “He whose right it is shall reign.”  Ignorance of God should no longer be the stepping-stone to faith; understanding Him, “whom to know aright is Life eternal,” is the only guaranty of obedience.

This volume may not open a new thought, and make it at once familiar.  It has the sturdy task of a pioneer, to hack away at the tall oaks and cut the rough granite, leaving future ages to declare what it has done.  We made our first discovery of the adaptation of metaphysics to the treatment of disease in the winter of 1866; since then we have tested the Principle on ourselves and others, and never found it to fail to prove the statements herein made of it.  We must learn the science of Life, to reach the perfection of man.  To understand God as the Principle of all being, and to live in accordance with this Principle, is the Science of Life.  But to reproduce this harmony of being, the error of personal sense must yield to science, even as the science of music corrects tones caught from the ear, and gives the sweet concord of sound.  There are many theories of physic and theology, and many calls in each of their directions for the right way; but we propose to settle the question of “What is Truth?” on the ground of proof, and let that method of healing the sick and establishing Christianity be adopted that is found to give the most health and to make the best Christians; science will then have a fair field, in which case we are assured of its triumph over all opinions and beliefs.  Sickness and sin have ever had their doctors; but the question is, Have they become less because of them?  The longevity of our antediluvians would say, No! and the criminal records of today utter their voices little in favor of such a conclusion.  Not that we would deny to Caesar the things that are his, but that we ask for the things that belong to Truth; and safely affirm, from the demonstrations we have been able to make, that the science of man understood would have eradicated sin, sickness, and death, in a less period than six thousand years.  We find great difficulties in starting this work right.  Some shockingly false claims are already made to a metaphysical practice;