Excerpt from History of New Testament Times: With an Introduction to the Apocrypha
After eight years, later than anticipated, I present here the sequel and completion of my Introduction to the Old Testament. The unexpectedly warm reception and generous appraisal of that book had encouraged me to write an Introduction to the Apocrypha in the same style and for the same public; but after completing it, I could not resist the temptation to preface it with a history of the period in which the Apocrypha were written.
The incredibly favorable reviews and astonishing wide circulation of the first volume produced in me a sense of duty - a most distressing feeling - urging the completion of the work. In addition to what seemed to me a royal command to undertake this considerable labor, I may adduce two other reasons as my excuse for inflicting on long-suffering readers another bulky tome.