The consideration of the canon and the text of the New Testament forms a preface to the study of what is called intro duction. It is true that these two topics have sometimes of late years been remanded to the close of introduction, have been treated in a somewhat perfunctory way, and have been threatened with exclusion from the field. The earlier habit of joining them together and placing them at the front was much more correct. Now and then they were termed as a whole general introduc tion. The rest of introduction, the criticism of the contents of the books in and for themselves, was then called special introduction. The use of these names does not seem to me to be necessary. The introduction to the study of the New Testament is made up of three criticisms, of the critical treatment of three things.