Above all things, I have tried to be interesting. Critical discussions are too apt to divert those who pursue them from the absorbing human interest of the Old Testament. Its writers were men of like hopes and fears and passions with ourselves, and not the least important task of a sympathetic scholarship is to recover that humanity which speaks to us in so many portions and so many ways from the pages of the Old Testament. While we must never allow ourselves to forget that the Old Testament is a voice from the ancient and the Semitic world, not a few parts of it--books, for example, like Job and Ecclesiastes--are as modern as the book that was written yesterday. But, first and last, the Old Testament is a religious book; and an _Introduction_ to it should, in my opinion, introduce us not only to its literary problems, but to its religious content. I have therefore usually attempted--briefly, and not in any homiletic spirit--to indicate the religious value and significance of its several books. There may be readers who would here and there have desiderated a more confident tone, but I have deliberately refrained from going further than the facts seemed to warrant. The cause of truth is not served by unwarranted assertions; and the facts are often so difficult to concatenate that dogmatism becomes an impertinence. Those who know the ground best walk the most warily. But if the old confidence has been lost, a new confidence has been won. Traditional opinions on questions of date and authorship may have been shaken or overturned, but other and greater things abide; and not the least precious is that confidence, which can now justify itself at the bar of the most rigorous scientific investigation, that, in a sense altogether unique, the religion of Israel is touched by the finger of God. JOHN E. McFADYEN. ENGELBERG, SWITZERLAND. CONTENTS THE ORDER OF THE BOOKS GENESIS EXODUS LEVITICUS NUMBERS DEUTERONOMY JOSHUA THE PROPHETIC AND PRIESTLY DOCUMENTS JUDGES SAMUEL KINGS ISAIAH JEREMIAH EZEKIEL HOSEA JOEL AMOS OBADIAH JONAH MICAH NAHUM HABAKKUK ZEPHANIAH HAGGAI ZECHARIAH MALACHI PSALMS PROVERBS JOB SONG OF SONGS RUTH LAMENTATIONS ECCLESIASTES ESTHER DANIEL EZRA-NEHEMIAH CHRONICLES THE ORDER OF THE BOOKS