As the manuscript of the book lay upon my table, I wondered if any publisher would feel the human pathos of the struggle, and the mighty meaning of it all for truth. Who would publish it? But here it is, printed and bound, a book--“For the Benefit of My Creditors,” as if he were debtor to all, his enemies included, and owed them only love. This is as modest and self-withholding a story as a man ever told of himself. There are all too few of such human stories. This one would never have been told had the author not hated intellectual cowardice as he hated moral cowardice, with a perfect hatred. He sought the truth--in the Bible, and in his own mind. The geologist seeks some of the same truth in the rocks; the astronomer in the stars. The Old Testament was this scholar’s field. And, laying aside tradition and the spirit of dogma, he sought as a scientist seeks, patiently, fearlessly, reverently, for what his long and thorough preparation made him eminently able to find. This is the highest type of courage and daring. Who finds truth finds trial and adventure. In his condemnation by the bishops of his Church, he felt that truth had been assailed and the scientific method. He did not write this book to defend the truth, nor to defend himself; but to examine himself, as he would examine a difficult fragment of Hebrew manuscript, and make himself easy for other men to read. His trial was long past, and most of his life had been lived, before a page of his book was written. He came at it reluctantly: he might seem personal--petty or selfish or egotistical; or he might say something bitter and vindictive and do harm to the Church. But neither himself nor his Church must stand in the way of truth; and in his trial, truth had been tried, and the only way of knowing truth had been condemned. So he sits down to write this story of his life exactly as he sat down to write a commentary on the Book of Genesis--to account for his being as a man and a scholar, his preparation, his methods of study, his attitude, and approach. How much truth has he discovered? He makes no claims. Darwin may or may not have the truth about Evolution; but we have a certain and a great truth in Darwin--in his mind and method. It was _how_ Darwin tried to solve the problem of life and its forms, rather than the solution, that has changed the thinking of the world. For three years I was a student of Hebrew and Old Testament Exegesis under this scholar. I have forgotten all he taught me, and more. But the _way_ he taught me has changed forever my outlook upon life. His attitude was truth, and it flooded not only the whole mind, but one’s whole being, with light. Many a time I have sat in his classroom during the discussion of some highly difficult and dangerous question of doctrine, and said to myself, amid the drawn daggers of those who had come to trap him, “Right or wrong his findings, he is himself truth, its life and way.”