We have also felt desirous of supplying a want in our denominational literature. Our book catalogue in this department was utterly wanting. As a help to a better appreciation of the character of the Bible and its relations to the literary productions of the human mind uninspired, and also to the better appreciation of its influence upon the literature, science, and intellect of the world, this volume should go into the hands of every Bible student; it should find a place in every Christian home. The Bible class, or Sunday school teacher, who shall read it consecutively, will have his views of the Bible enlarged, and find himself more fully equipped for his work. No Sunday school library should be without a copy. But to the minister, preaching Christ, and presenting the claims of the Bible, it will be found invaluable. By its fluent style, its line of thought and mode of discussion, it is eminently adapted to popular reading. It is, in fact, like the Bible itself, a people's book. Learned criticisms-as dry as learned, and as long as dry-we have in abundance. But popular presentations of the Bible, exhibiting its striking characteristics and its adaptations, are few and rare. We have gone over its pages carefully, and given it such adaptation to its mission in America as seemed desirable. With these brief notes, we now commend it to the Christian public. D. W. C. CINCINNATI, OCTOBER 1, 1863. PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION. IT is not without considerable hesitation that I present this volume to the public. The subject, in detached parts, has been treated by far abler pens; but, so far as I am aware, the attempt has not been made, in any single volume at least, to exhibit the subject with the same comprehensiveness and system. Where I had the labors of preceding writers to direct and aid me, I felt less hesitation; where I had not these guides, the importance of the subject not unfrequently caused me to doubt my own ability to handle it, so as, while gaining the ear of those who are of literary taste and culture, there should be nothing to offend the sensibilities of a pure and simple piety. I had an abiding conviction that a free exhibition of the literature of the Bible is calculated to strengthen our belief in its Divine inspiration; but on the other hand, it needed caution, while freely exhibiting its literary characteristics, not to present the Bible as merely a literary production. I have striven to use this caution; so that, although I do not on every other page reiterate my 5 belief in its Divine inspiration, I am hopeful that the reader will find nothing in this volume which can have a tendency to put away from his mind the thought which was constantly present to my own— that the book whose own literary beauties I examine, and whose influence on literature and the arts I endeavor to trace and record, is none other than the Book of God. I shall have sadly failed in my design if what I present to the reader does not increase his devout admiration of the Bible as a book, which is as divinely beautiful as it is divinely true. Notwithstanding my misgivings whether I have been at all able to do justice to so important a subject, I am fain to persuade myself that till some one more competent to the task shall undertake it, the present volume may, in some small degree, supply what I have long felt to be a desideratum in sacred literature. |