This volume does not claim to march in the front ranks of Assyrian scholars. The writer has not excavated mounds hitherto unknown, and interpreted the tablets he found there… His has been the humbler aim of making a larger number acquainted with the work that has been done, and with some at least of the results obtained. He has sought to gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost; so that humble believers who have been startled by the noise of the battle now raging round the Word may have their hearts reassured by the corroborations of the truth that lie stored up in every ancient mound and are brought to light by the pick of the explorer.