PREFACE.

I

REGRET that so long an interval should have

elapsed between the first announcement of these Lectures, and their publication; and I owe my thanks to the Committee of the Union for their patience in waiting for them. But I can hardly charge myself with any fault. The results of a very serious accident, and frequent and prolonged interruptions to health, prevented my touching my task for nearly two years after it was first proposed to me.

These things, together with a feebleness of voice, which made me doubt whether it would not be scant courtesy to the public to allow an audience to be invited to hear what might, in great part, be inaudible, led me to shrink from all thought of oral delivery. This deviation from the usual course, however, is perhaps greater in appearance than reality; since it rarely happens that more than portions of a series of Lectures of this kind can be given in the time to which the speaker must necessarily restrict himself. They are in general largely supplemented and expanded before publication.

As the Lectures were not to be delivered, I naturally paid less attention than I should have done to those minute proprieties which, I am well aware, ordinarily distinguish spoken from written composition. I have also taken advantage of the same circumstance, to determine the length of each Lecture, rather by the nature of the subject than by the Lecturer's hourglass.

It is often a valuable and interesting feature of volumes of this class (at least it is so in my estimation), that they contain a large supplement of references and citations, for the illustration or corroboration. of the Lecturer's positions. In conformity with this time-honoured practice, I also had designed a compilation of passages for the same purpose; but I soon found that the extent of my subject would leave me little space for them, and I have contented myself with throwing a few of my materials into the form of foot-notes. The Appendix to the present volume is simply intended to elucidate some of the points which I could not fully treat in the Lectures themselves.

It may be proper to inform the reader that, in some few places, I have extracted two or three sentences, and in one case several paragraphs, from anonymous and fugitive articles which I wrote some years ago, and which I have no intention to republish. Should

the reader recognise any such passages, he will be kind enough to absolve me from the charge of plagiarism.

But as

In the seventh Lecture there are one or two thoughts SO like one or two in Professor Leathes' little volume "On the Structure of the Old Testament," that if his book had been published some years ago, and I had read it then, I should surmise that in these cases my memory had unconsciously suggested what it could no longer trace to its source. my manuscript was finished many months before the publication of his volume, and was even in the printer's hands before I saw it, I hope that any coincidence (which is purely accidental) may be regarded as some presumption that our views, so far as they agree, are founded on truth.

PENNAL TOWER, MACHYNLLeth,

December 8th, 1873.

ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND

I

EDITION.

N this edition, some few verbal errors which had escaped my pen have been carefully corrected. I may also take the opportunity of saying that an intelligent and courteous correspondent, who conceals his name, reminds me that the passage attributed to Sir Thomas Browne (p. 311), though extracted from Wilkin's accurate edition of his Works (vol. iv. p. 276), where it is given as part of an "unpublished paper” found in the British Museum, is not genuine the "fragment" being composed by a very skilful mimic of Sir Thomas Browne's style and manner. The imitation is, indeed, so perfect, that except for the confession of its author it would have continued to impose, as it has often imposed, on the most discerning readers. If not Sir Thomas Browne's, all who are familiar with his writings would say it deserves to be.

I see that one of my friendly critics has expressed surprise that greater prominence has not been given to the argument derived from the spiritual and moral influence the Scriptures exert, and which, to Christians in general, is so principal a reason for believing them to be of superhuman origin. I do indeed believe with him, that to Christians this is, as I have said in the book itself, "the evidence of evidences." But it implies, if admitted, that he who admits it already concedes the conclusion which these Lectures are designed to establish; while to those who do not, it can only partially, and within certain limits, be insisted on. But in Appendix No. VII. (which may possibly have escaped the notice of my critic) I have touched on the argument itself, its value to those who accept the Bible as of superhuman origin, and the mode and degree in which alone it can be logically valid with those who doubt or deny it. For the reasons just stated, I have purposely treated this matter briefly, and thrown it into the Appendix.

May 13th, 1874.