“These analogies and identities are, as you well know, open to several interpretations or explanations. The main one offered by you seems to me, as a fact, quite probable; certainly it was constantly associated with such rites. “I am not able altogether to agree with the point of view expressed in your Preface, and on pages 193–195, in reference to the general origin and trend of religious ideas; but possibly I should find myself closer to your position were I to see it more amply defined. I cannot think the earliest religions were, as a rule, more ‘uplifting’ than the later ones; I think there was a general progress upwards. FROM THE REV. DR. EDWARD T. BARTLETT. Dean Bartlett, of the Divinity School of the Protestant Episcopal Church of Philadelphia, is prominent as a devout and careful Bible scholar, who has the confidence of the Christian community to a rare degree. He was the first president of the American Institute of Sacred Literature, and he is the vice-president of the Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis. His work, on the “Scriptures Hebrew and Christian,” as an introduction to the study of the Bible, won for him commendation from eminent scholars. Having read the proof-sheets of this book, Dean Bartlett writes: “I thank you for the opportunity to read your book ‘The Threshold Covenant.’ And I also want to thank you for allowing me to know something of the growth of your thought on the subject, in the frequent conversations we have had about it during the years past. Ever since I came into the privilege of calling you friend I have been a witness of the truth of your statement in the Preface, that your theory is wholly a result of induction, that it came to you out of the gathered facts, instead of the facts being gathered in support of the theory. What I know as to your method would lead me to expect a result that must stand, and there are few writers who would be for me as authoritative as you in matters which I could not verify for myself. But here you furnish the means of verification. “As the subject has come up between us from time to time and part by part, I have been led to think over what you told me, and it has seemed to me that nothing could exceed the care with which you advanced in your induction. And now that I review the work as a whole, I am convinced that you have demonstrated your theory. In doing so, you have thrown a whole flood of new bright light on primitive culture, on some of the sacredest phases of human life in all ages, on many places of Scripture from the first chapter to the last, and on the central sacraments of the Old and New Covenants.