Excerpt from The Bible in Shakspeare: A Study of the Relation of the Works of William Shakspeare to the Bible, With Numerous Parallel Passages, Quotations, References, Paraphrases and AllusionsThe loss, by fire, of all the manuscripts of this work, together with the corrected proof-sheets, explains the delay of its publication so long after the date announced by advertisement and prospectus. On December 30, 1902, the entire plant and buildings of the printing establishment having the work in hand, were totally destroyed on the eve of completing the proofs, together with my work of years.It became necessary therefore to prepare the matter again from partial copy, and notes in hand. The verification of the large number of references and quotations, a second time, entailed a great amount of labor, but the author hopes and believes that the work has not suffered in point of accuracy.The preparation of this work from the beginning, has been attended with a full share of author's troubles, the particulars of which, however, are not of general interest.No thought of publication was in mind when the study of the subject was entered upon twelve years ago. Certain platform utterances and magazine articles, as to the so-called "absence of religion in Shakspeare, " attracted the author's attention and he found that there existed a rather general thought of the great dramatist as irreligious, or at least that his works indicate indifference to the subject of the Christian religion.These statements and opinions awakened an interest in the study as a matter of personal interest but the evidence against them was found to be so abundant and conclusive that it amounts to a revelation. Moreover it did not appear that the subjects embraced in "The Bible in Shakspeare" were before the public, in any way available to the ordinary student or reader.The author is not vain enough to regard this work as the best that can be said or done upon the subject. It is quite likely that other minds may be turned in the same direction who will present further and more profound study.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.