THIS volume chiefly represents the Hulsean Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge in November and December 1871. The first and second lectures are printed substantially as they were first written, the parts omitted in delivery being restored, and the whole being revised, with occasional expansions. The third and still more the fourth lectures were originally written with difficulty under physical depression, and fell far short of their intended scope: in their present form they are to a considerable extent new. A vain hope of finding some space of undistracted leisure for recasting them altogether has held back publication; but the delay has already been too great. A sermon preached at the Trinity Ordination in Ely Cathedral on June 15, 1873, is appended to the Lectures: though addressed to a very different congregation, it may illustrate some of the thoughts which they are intended to set forth.

According to the design of Mr Hulse his Lecturer had two duties, to be performed in different courses of sermons; to show “the truth and excellence of Christianity,” more especially by “collateral arguments”; and to explain “some of the more difficult texts or obscure parts of the Holy Scriptures, such as may appear to be more generally useful or necessary to be explained.” Recent legislation, while curtailing the number of lectures, and abolishing the requirement of publication, has likewise removed these conditions of subject matter.