The Christian Church is one of the facts of our time which one may like or dislike, but which no intelligent observer of the contemporary scene will wish to ignore. When therefore we set out to study the events out of which it arose,and the part its Founder played in them, we are not like archaeologists digging up the remains of a forgotten civilization, or palaeontologists reconstructing an extinct organism. The events are part of the living fabric of a contemporary society whose dependence on its Founder is a permanent feature of its continuing existence.