"Messianic Prophecy is the most important of all themes; for it is the ideal of redemption given by the Creator to our race at the beginning of its history, and it ever abides as the goal of humanity until the divine plan has been accomplished. . . . [It] has been too much dominated by the apologetical and the polemical interests, and the historical and dogmatic bearings of the theme have been too much neglected. This has given occasion to another common fault in the treatment of the subject. It has not been grasped as a whole and treated by a comprehensive method. " --from the Preface