BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION

"One Sunday evening, about twenty years ago, I was standing in my pulpit at Hobart, Tasmania. The occasion was special and the church was crowded. I was commencing that night my Winter Series of Addresses. The addresses, as the printed syllabus showed, were to be delivered at fortnightly intervals. During the hymn before the announcements, I was deliberating on the precise phraseology in which I should refer to the course on which I was embarking. It suddenly flashed upon me that, by emphasizing the address that was to be delivered a fortnight hence, I was virtually inviting the more casual members of my congregation to absent themselves on the following Sunday. Could I not say a word that would make the intervening Sundays attractive ? It happened that, during the week, I had been reading the Life of Luther, and had been impressed by the way in which the Reformation sprang from a single text.

Whilst I was still engrossed in this brown study, the hymn came to an end and the people resumed their seats. I announced my fortnightly addresses accord­ing to the printed syllabus; and then astonished myself by intimating that, on the following Sunday evening, I should commence an alternating series of fortnightly addresses entitled Texts That Made History. 'Next Sunday evening,' I added, with extraordinary temerity, 'I shall deal with Martin Luther's Text!'

At the close of the service, one of my most trusted officers came to me in great delight. 'That's a noble idea,' he exclaimed enthusiastically; 'it will be the best series that you ever preached!'

It has certainly been the longest, and the most evangelistic, and the most effective. And it has been the series in which I myself have found the most delight.

In taking leave of this fifth-and final-volume of the Texts That Made History Series, I felt that I should like to append this word of explanation.

Armadale, Melbourne, Australia. Christmas, 1927.