History is often a dreary study except to a few experts; and yet the Christians of to-day naturally wish to know more about their predecessors in the old time before them. There is always much difficulty in separating what to them must be interesting from masses of detail which do not touch their sympathies.

From the time of Christ to the epoch of the Reformation there were no Dissenters—only traitors and heretics, who were deemed unworthy to live in the same world and to breathe the same air as Emperors, Popes, and Bishops. But the Christian temperament can be traced through all the centuries—whether the devout people of the period were martyrs or hermits, monks, nuns, or friars, pilgrims or crusaders, priests or warriors. The same aspirations, misgivings, trials, and difficulties existed then as now, though the trials and difficulties may now be less. The best people of to-day may be trusted to recognise a touch of their own kindred amid all the varieties of time and place and circumstance which make up the past.

I have here collected from many histories, annals, chronicles, and biographies, far and wide, some particulars of the interesting persons, episodes, and events from the Christian’s point of view during the first fourteen centuries. The literature of so many ages is vast, and the things now deemed of most interest are overlaid with heavy material. But I have left out all the miracles—most of the wordy war of doctrines—most of the atrocities of persecutors and inquisitors. I have only culled a few flowers; I have only tried to snatch from oblivion a few brief memorials which may suggest wholesome thoughts and inquiries to modern Christians of every denomination.

C. J.