The Essentials of Spirituality

The spiritual life depends on self-recollection and detachment from the rush of life; it depends on facing frankly the thought of death; it is signalized, especially, by the identification of self with others, even of the guiltless with the guilty. Spirituality is sometimes spoken of as if it were a kind of moral luxury, a work of supererogation, a token of fastidiousness and over-refinement. It is nothing of the sort. Spirituality is simply morality carried to its farthest bounds; it is not an airy bauble of the fancy, it is of "the tough fiber of the human heart."

"We have long known and honored Felix Adler and his work, and yet this book comes, in some aspects, as a surprise to us. He puts on spirituality an estimate which the Society of Ethical Culture has not supposed to attach to it. Spirituality is no imaginative or emotional enthusiasm. It is the highest sanity. It is not a subsidiary quality which may be added to honesty and benevolence...And spirituality is not the privilege of an elect few." -Outlook

"The need of the twentieth century for more direct cultivation of the spiritual life is the theme of Dr. Adler's latest book." -The Bookman

The Essentials of Spirituality crystallizes Dr. Adler's teaching throughout his long service as an apostle of Ethnical Culture. Dr. Adler has produced comparatively few books, and none of recent years to which he has given much minute preparation." -Publishers Weekly

"Felix Adler has given us a suggestive study of The Essentials of Spirituality." -The Park Review