Having had the privilege of reading advance sheets of the present book, it is both a pleasure and a privilege to commend it to all who are interested in the study of ” the prophetic Word made surer ” (2Pe 1:19). All students of prophecy are sure to be interested in a presentation of the chief contents of the prophetic Scriptures which is so original in scope and method.

But I would more especially bespeak for this book the attention of those who are not students of prophecy. Unfortunately this class includes the enormous majority of present-day believers. No fact is at once more patent or more lamentable than that the writings of the prophets are little read and less comprehended.

Doubtless there are many reasons for this condition. The characteristic of the present age is a reckless and unreasoning optimism. On every hand we are assured that the church is ” marching grandly on to the conquest of the world,” and that despite the fact that after one hundred years of missions there are 200,000,000 more heathen to convert than at the beginning of that century. But prophecy, grandly optimistic in its ultimate view, presents anything but a flattering picture of the end of this age, Apostasy, heading up in the man of sin, and the utter destruction of the present imposing world-system by a crushing blow, is the testimony of the prophets. This is an unwelcome message, and therefore is not heeded. It is pleasanter to listen to the self-sent prophets who prophesy ” smooth things.”

Another reason for the neglect of prophecy is found in the undeniable difficulties which encounter the beginner in that study. A bewildering number of new phrases and formulae are encountered, and it is not all at once, nor indeed without long application, that this seeming confusion falls into its truly majestic order.

It is precisely at this point that ” The Harmony of the Prophetic Word” seems to me supremely helpful. What the beginner could not do at all, nor even the most persevering student for many months, is here done for him by an expert student of the prophetic writings.

The method, as will be seen by an examination of the book, is to take up the great prophetic epochs and events, and bring together from the whole body of prophecy the testimony concerning them. This, indeed, thoroughly as the author has done his work, will not be found available as a substitute for personal study of these great subjects—nor was such substitution any part of the thought of the author —but what the present book does do is to present the great subjects concerning which God has revealed the future, and so to assemble and analyse that revelation that any reader of the book will find himself fully introduced to these great and important themes.

The final effect of such a synthesis is to leave the mind overwhelmingly impressed with the divine origin and authorship of these ancient oracles. Writing in widely separated ages, under wholly different circumstances, of necessity often ignorant of each other’s writings, the production of one continuous, harmoniously developed testimony is proof unanswerable that, though He employed many penmen, God alone is the Author of the prophetic testimony.
C. I. SCOFIELD.
East Northfield, Mass.

Harmony of the Prophetic Word