This is a reproduction of the original book.These lectures were delivered in March, 1890, at the instance of Eugene Levering, Esq., of Baltimore, in the Hall which he has recently erected and given to the Johns Hopkins University, for the use of the Young Men's Christian Association of that institution; and the President of the Y. M. C. A. specially requested their publication. They were not designed as class-room lectures, since many not connected with the University were invited to attend. The subject treated seems to possess an ever- deepening interest at the present time. The personal character of Jesus is now widely perceived to be an important guarantee of his teachings and works. This character is presented by the first lecture in a way that to some may appear lacking in devout warmth; but the object was to gain the concurrence of every person who will calmly survey the historical facts, and thus to lay a foundation for what would follow. It is hoped that the second lecture will tend to rectify certain erroneous but quite prevalent views of the Saviour's teaching; and that the third lecture may be found to have some argu- mentative force in regard to his mission and claims. The little volume is the fruit of life-time studies, and has been prepared with the author's best exertions, and a great desire to promote "the knowledge of Jesus, the most excellent of the sciences."
About the Author: John Albert Broadus was born in 1827 in Culpeper County, Virginia. He was educated at home and at a private school. He taught in a small school before completing his undergraduate studies at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia. Broadus was ordained in 1850, became pastor of the Baptist church in Charlottesville. He delivered a lecture at the University of Virginia in memorial to Professor Gessner Harrison in 1873. A decade later, in 1883, he delivered an address on the Confederate cause at Louisville's Cave Hill Cemetery. The address was an important part of reunion, for it argued that both sides were partly correct in their positions that led to war. In 1859, Broadus became professor of New Testament interpretation and homiletics at the new Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. During the American Civil War, he served as a Confederate chaplain to Robert E. Lee's army in Northern Virginia. In 1888, he became Southern Seminary's second president. In 1889, Broadus delivered the Beecher Lectures at Yale Divinity School. Charles Spurgeon deemed Broadus the "greatest of living preachers."Church historian Albert Henry Newman later said "perhaps the greatest man the Baptists have produced."