_2. Treatment of the Meridian Dispensation:_ It is not the purpose of the lessons covering the period of this Meridian Dispensation to deal either in detail or succinctly with historical events. The general scheme of our present year's work precludes any such attempt. Equally distant is it from our purpose to attempt to treat exhaustively of Christian doctrine, or even the divinity of Christ. The intention of the lesson is merely to present sufficient historical and doctrinal matter as will hold the thought present to the mind that a dispensation of the Gospel was again given to men under the ministry of John the Baptist, the forerunner of the Christ, and in the birth, life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. The aim of the Lessons dealing with this dispensation is merely to treat it as one of many dispensations of the Gospel given to men: not to emphasize its glory, or importance, or treat it as a culmination of ages, or of divine purposes. For that culmination of ages and purposes--"the Dispensation of the Fullness of Times," which will witness gathered together, "in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in Him;" the age in which the Christ shall be entirely triumphant is an age and dispensation future from the Meridian Dispensation, as we shall fully see before this division of our work closes. Here it is thought necessary only to guard the student against disappointment by cautioning him not to expect too much.