When anyone undertakes to study the meaning and to cultivate the habit of prayer, it is well for the person to understand, from the beginning, that he is dealing with a natural function of his life and not with an artificial addition. For instance, raising palm trees in Greenland would be an unnatural proceeding. They never were intended to grow there and never can grow there save under stress of artificial forcing. The culture of prayer would be just as strained a procedure, were it not true that the tendency to pray is native to us, that prayer is indigenous in us, that we do pray, one way or another, even though fitfully and without effect, and that we humans always have prayed and always will pray.

Harry Emerson Fosdick was one of the most popular liberal preachers of the early twentieth century, and his The Meaning of Faith is considered by many one of the finest reconciliations of religious belief with modern scientific thought. This charming little book features daily devotional readings focused on understanding faith, reflecting upon: .Faith and Life's Adventure .Faith A Road to Truth .Faith's Intellectual Difficulties .Faith's Greatest Obstacle .Faith and Science .Faith and Moods and other hurdles in honoring one's belief. This thoughtful, friendly interpretation of the holy book of one of the world's dominant faiths is a powerful corrective to reflexively fundamental thinking... just as it was when it was first published in 1917. Also available from Cosimo Classics: Fosdick's The Manhood of the Master and The Meaning of Prayer. American theologian HARRY EMERSON FOSDICK (1878-1969) was born in New York, educated at Colgate and Columbia Universities, and served as professor of practical theology at Union Theological Seminary from 1915 to 1946. Among his many works are A Guide to Understanding the Bible (1938) and A Book of Public Prayers (1960).

Forty of the best sermons of the famous New York City Protestant minister, selected by C.L. Wallis and issued in honor of his 80th birthday.

A major figure in American religious and cultural history, Fosdick was famous as a preacher, a pacifist and a champion of civil rights. He was also the author of forty-seven books.

Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969) was one of the most influential preachers in the twentieth century. He believed every sermon ought ask and answer some question that genuinely troubles individuals or the societies of which they are a part. Answers to Real Problemsgathers several significant sermons from Fosdick's long ministry. The selection is rooted in current needs. This collection presents him asking and answering questions that still weigh--or ought to weigh--on the minds of people today. Here is one of America's finest preachers talking about war, nationalism, the relationship between liberals and conservatives, the plight of the church, public ethics, private morality, and more.