On-the-face-of-it meaning

A letter like this, clear cut in its thought, teeming with ideas emanating from an unique religious experience, and admirably adjusted to known situations, bears on the face of it the marks of genuineness even without recourse to the unusually excellent external attestation.

It need not even appear on the face of it to be a contract between the parties, but may take the form of a joint declaration, or of an exchange of notes.

Thus on the face of it there is something like a return to the self-sufficient utterance of antique religion; but, in reality, there is all the difference in the world between a suggestion directed outwardly in the fruitless attempt to conjure nature without first obeying her, and one directed towards the inner man so as to establish the peace of God within the heart.