In order, then, to incorporate the results of recent investi gation, it became necessary to do so, so far as was possible, in the more popular work. And there was no difficulty in doing this, provided learned details were omitted. The omis sion is a loss in some respects, but in others a gain, inasmuch as in this way the necessity of learned excuses and pretences is excluded. One such pretence is the assurance so often met with in the writings of scientific free-thinkers, that a purely historical interest constitutes the whole gist of their inquiries. With every respect for the word of the learned gentlemen, I beg to affirm that what they tell us is not pos sible, and would be no credit to them if it were. The motives of a man who writes about the Assyrian Kings or the Egyptian Pharaohs may doubtless be purely historical; Christianity is so living a power, and the problem as to its origin so rife in important consequences to the immediate present, that the student must be literally stupid whose inte rest in the determination of such a question can be strictly confined to the historical.