Excerpt from Handbooks: For Bible Classes

Hen you go to see a picture, the artist is very careful to set you where the right light may fall upon it otherwise its beauties are blurred, its figures indistinct. And unless we stand in a writer's point of view, what was perfectly lucid and definite to him is confused or vague to us. Without understanding a writer's aim, we may derive much information from his book but we shall certainly miss many of his points, and be at a distinct disadvantage as readers. It is not without reason, therefore, that among the first questions we put about a book is this, What is the author's aim? This question cannot always be answered from one perusal, sometimes not from many perusals. And hence it has become the familiar custom of literary men _to introduce their books to the public by means of a preface, in which they indicate their object in publishing, and put their readers in an attitude of intelligence towards what is to follow. From what a world of labour and misapprehension would a few words of preface have saved us in connection with the book before us How thankful should we be for even a title-page giving a brief description of the book, and telling us the name of the author, and the place and date of publication We have not so much as a title. So barely does the book come down to us, that in its original Hebrew it goes by the name of its first word; and not till it was translated did it win for itself the well-chosen name by which it has ever since been known. This nam'elessness suits its archaic character, and is a mark of its old-world origin. It comes upon our hands as a foundling, and it is only from its own lineaments and language we can learn anything of its origin.

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