In this writing, Spalding summarizes his view of religion once again. Like Schleiermacher, he addresses the educated of his time and aims to clarify the significance of religion to them. However, he neither assigns it a distinct province in the mind like Schleiermacher nor reduces it to a natural religion in the sense of Kant; rather, he demonstrates how religion can serve the concrete shaping of life. His reflections culminate in the idea of a resemblance between humans and God.