These were the motives present to my mind in the month of November when I chose my subject. But by the beginning of the year (1904) the position of things by which they had been prompted was very largely changed. The urgency was no longer nearly so great. Two books had appeared, both in the English tongue, which did better than I could hope to do the very thing that I desired—one more limited, the other more extended in its scope, but both maintaining what I believe to be the right cause in what I believe to be the right way. These books were _The Gospels as Historical Documents_, Part I, by Professor V. H. Stanton of Cambridge, and _The Character and Authorship of the Fourth Gospel_ by Dr. James Drummond, Principal of Manchester College. I should be well content to rest the case, as I should wish it to be stated, on these two books, especially the second. But by the time when they appeared I was already committed to my task. As I have said, one of them is limited in its scope; and the other—admirable as it is, and heartily as I agree with its principles as well as with most of its details—is perhaps not quite so complete on all points as it is on some; so that there may still be room for such a brief course of lectures as you ask of me, partly to reinforce points already made, and partly, it may be, in some small degree to supplement them. * * * * * What I have been saying amounts to a confession that my purpose is apologetic. I propose to defend the traditional view, or (as an alternative) something so near to the traditional view that it will count as the same thing. It is better to be clear on this point at starting. And yet I know that there are many minds—and those just the minds to which I should most like to appeal—to which this will seem to be a real drawback. There is an impression abroad—a very natural impression—that ‘apologetic’ is opposed to ‘scientific.’ In regard to this there are just one or two things that I would ask leave to say. (1) We are all really apologists, in the sense that for all of us some conclusions are more acceptable than others. No one undertakes to write on any subject with his mind in the state of a sheet of white paper. We all start with a number of general principles and general beliefs, conscious or unconscious, fixed or provisional. We all naturally give a preference to that which harmonizes best with these beliefs, though all the time a process of adjustment may be going on, by which we assimilate larger conclusions to smaller as well as smaller to larger. (2) Even in the strictest science it must not be supposed that the evidence will always point the same way. The _prima facie_ conclusion will not always be necessarily the right one. It cannot be, because it is very possible that it may conflict with some other conclusion that is already well established. A balance has to be struck, and some adjustment has to be attempted.