The Kingdom of God is the Christian answer to the most vital question that man has to solve, the question of the purpose of his being. Our Saviour's teaching on the subject is closely connected with hopes and convictions in full currency at the time of his Advent on earth; but he so used these convictions and hopes as to give a new meaning to life, and to open a new direction to human aspiration and effort. The Kingdom of God in his hands is a many-sided conception; to do justice to it has been the problem set to his followers in the long and varied course of the Church's existence.... My fervent hope and prayer is that, whatever its faults, this volume of Lectures may do nothing to hinder, but by God's mercy may rather in some degree, however slight, set forward the Kingdom of Christ and of God. I would make my own the prayer of one of my predecessors: 'Domine Deus, quaecunque dixi de tuo, agnoscant et tui; si qua de meo, et Tu ignosce et tui.' from the Preface