ss. But now, public
opinion is so tolerant, especially among the reading and thinking
classes, that both parties are practically upon much the same
footing. Indeed for bold and strong and less sensitive minds
negative views will have an attraction and will find support that
will go far to neutralise any counterbalancing disadvantage.

On either side the remedy for the effects of bias must be found in
a rigorous and searching criticism. If misleading statements and
unsound arguments are allowed to pass unchallenged the fault will
not lie only with their author.

It will be hardly necessary for me to say that the Christian
Evidence Society is not responsible for the contents of this work,
except in so far as may be involved in the original request that I
should write it. I undertook the task at first with some hesitation,
and I could not have undertaken it at all without stipulating for
entire freedom. The Society very kindly and liberally granted me
this, and I am conscious of having to some extent availed myself
of it. I have not always stayed to consider whether the opinions
expressed were in exact accordance with those of the majority of
Christians. It will be enough if they should find points of contact
in some minds, and the tentative element in them will perhaps be
the more indulgently judged now that the reconciliation of the
different branches of knowledge and belief is being so anxiously
sought for.

The instrument of the enquiry had to be fashioned as the enquiry
itself went on, and I suspect that the consequences of this will
be apparent in some inequality and incompleteness in the earlier
portions. For instance, I am afraid that the textual analysis of
the quotations in Justin may seem somewhat less satisfactory than
that of those in the Clementine Homilies, though Justin's
quotations are the more important of the two. Still I hope that
the treatment of the first may be, for the scale of the book,
sufficiently adequate. There seemed to be a certain advantage in
presenting the results of the enquiry in the order in which it was
conducted. If time and strength are allowed me, I hope to be able
to carry several of the investigations that are begun in this book
some stages further.

I ought perhaps to explain that I was prevented by other engagements
from beginning seriously to work upon the subject until the latter
end of December in last year. The first of Dr. Lightfoot's articles
in the Contemporary Rev