We have sought in the foregoing work, to illustrate and delineate events of the Old Testament, as in the "Prince of the House of David" the New, so that they should "come home with a new power," to make use of the language of another, "to those who by long familiarity have lost, as it were, the vividness of the reality," and bring out their outlines so as to convey to the mind of the reader a more complete realization of scenes which seem to be but imperfectly apprehended by the general reader of the historical parts of the Old Testament. The work is written, not for scholars nor men learned in Egyptian lore; it advances nothing new; but simply offers in a new dress that which is old. The writer will have accomplished his object, "if his book," to quote the words of Mr. Stanley, in his preface to "Sinai and Palestine," "brings any one with fresh interest to the threshold of the divine story 'of the Exodus,' which has many approaches, and which, the more it is explored, the more it reveals of poetry, life, and instruction, such as has fallen to the lot of no other history in the world."
The intention of the author in writing these works on Scripture narratives is to draw the attention of those persons who do not read the Bible, or who read it carelessly, to the wonderful events it records, as well as the divine doctrines it teaches; and to tempt them to seek the inspired sources from which he mainly draws his facts.
The author's plan embraces three works of equal size. They cover the three great eras of Hebrew history, viz.: its beginning, at the Exodus; its culmination, as in the reigns of David and Solomon; its decline, as in the day of Our Lord's incarnation.
J. H. I.