  In August, 1912, it was my privilege to deliver a course of lectures at the Northfield Bible Conference. There were many requests for the publication of the addresses. I shall never forget the bright faces of the hundreds who gathered in beautiful Sage Chapel at 8:30 on those August mornings. In August, 1913, the lectures were repeated at the New York Chautauqua and at the Winona Bible Conference. There were renewed appeals for publication, but it was not possible to put the material into shape because of my work on A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research. I have expanded the lectures a good deal and have added some introductory discussion about James himself. I have in mind ministers, social workers, students of the Bible, Sunday school teachers, and all lovers of the Word of God and of rightness of life. Technical matters are placed in parentheses or in footnotes so that the reader may go on without these if he cares to do so. There is a freshness in the Greek text not possible in the English, but those who do not know Greek may still read this book with entire ease. I do not claim that these addresses are a detailed commentary on the Epistle of James. They are expository talks based, I trust, on sober, up-to-date scholarship and applied to modern life. It is the old gospel in the new age that we need and must know how to use. There is a wondrous charm in these words of the long ago from one who walked so |
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