I have long had the conviction that the resultsof that fuller and more exact interpretation of the books of the New Testamentto which biblical scholars have been conducted, might be made available forframing such a continuous and expanded narrative of the leading incidents inour Redeemer's life as would be profitable for practical and devotional, ratherthan for doctrinal or controversial purposes. It was chiefly to try whether Icould succeed in realizing the conception I had formed of what such a narrativemight be made, that the volume on the LastDay of Our Lord's Passion was published. The favourable reception which itmet has induced me to issue a companion volume on the succeeding and closingperiod of our Lord's life on earth. Should this meet with anything like equalfavour, I will be encouraged to prosecute the task of completing the narrativein a similar form.

To one who previously had doubts of the historic truth of the entireGospel narrative, a personal inspection of the localities in which the eventsare represented as having occurred, must have a peculiar interest and value. Itwas in such a state of mind, half inclined to believe that the whole story ofthe Gospel was legendary, that M. Renan visited the Holy Land three years ago.He has told us the result. "All that history," he says, "which at a distanceseemed to float in the clouds of an unreal world took instantly a body, asolidity, which astonished me. The striking accord between the texts and theplaces, the marvellous harmony of the evangelical picture with the countrywhich served as its frame, were to me as a revelation. I had before my eyes afifth gospel, mutilated but still legible, and ever afterwards in the recitalsof Matthew and Mark, instead of an abstract Being that one would say had neverexisted, I saw a wonderful human figure live and move." In listening to thisstriking testimony as to the effect of his visit to the East, we have deeply toregret that with M. Renan the movement from incredulity towards belief stoppedat its first stage.