Introduction

Introduction

JOHN the Baptist •" came for witness, that he might bear witness of the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came that he might bear witness of the light." So did Augustus Hopkins Strong.

He was positive, for he had been convinced. He was unswerving, for he had been sent. He was persuasive, for he had been humbled and lifted up by the miraculous love of God in Christ. As a careless young student he had been arrested in his course. Through a long lifetime he had been led by a way that he knew not and made a leader of thousands. His theology was vital, because it had been given him at illuminated moments purchased by costly experience; biblical, because what he had himself felt and discovered he found again in the old-fashioned Bible, reflected, explained and foretold; unemotional, for he had followed Christ doggedly; evangelical, because having once been saved by grace he could never turn aside with would-be reformers, or lose from his method the true strategy of heart-renewal as the sole cure for social ills and path to right relationships among men.

This little " Primer" is his valedictory. Its last words were dictated the day before the horses and chariots of fire descended. It is a charge also to all believers that remain. Two words only he wished on his tombstone: "For me to live is Christ," and "I have kept the faith." True epitaph! Many thank God upon every remembrance of him. Who follows in his train?

John Henry Strong.

Rochester, N. Y.