PREFACE.
THE author of this volume has for many years, at intervals, been engaged in its preparation. It has long seemed to him very desirable that a brief, comprehensive, and readable narrative of the origin of Christianity, and of its struggles and triumphs, should be prepared, adapted to the masses of the people. There are many ecclesiastical histories written by men of genius and erudition. They are, however, read by few, excepting professional theologians. The writer is not aware that there is any popular history of the extraordinary events involved in the progress of Christianity which can lure the attention of men, even of Christians, whose minds are engrossed by the agitations of busy life.
And yet there is no theme more full of sublime, exciting, and instructive interest. All the heroism which the annals of chivalry record pale into insignificance in presence of the heroism with which the battles of the cross have been fought, and with which Christians, in devotion to the interests of humanity, have met, undaunted, the most terrible doom.
The task is so difficult wisely to select and to compress within a few hundred pages the momentous events connected with Christianity during nearly nineteen centuries, that more than once the writer has been tempted to lay aside his pen in despair. Should this book fail to accomplish the purpose which he prayerfully seeks to attain, he hopes that some one else may be incited to make the attempt who will be more successful.
In writing the life of Jesus, the author has accepted the narratives of the evangelists as authentic and reliable, and has endeavored to give a faithful, and, so far as possible, a chronological account of what Jesus said and did, as he would write of any other distinguished personage. The same principle has guided him in tracing out the career of Paul and the apostles.
It has not been the object of the writer to urge any new views, or to discuss controverted questions of church polity or theology. This is a history of facts, not a philosophical or theological discussion of the principles which these facts may involve. No one, however, can read this narrative without the conviction that the religion of Jesus, notwithstanding the occasional perversions of human depravity or credulity, has remained essentially one and the same during all the centuries. We need no additional revelation. The gospel of Christ is “the power of God and the wisdom of God.” In its propagation lies the only hope of the world. Its universal acceptance will usher in such a day of glory as this world has never witnessed since the flowers of Eden wilted.
JOHN S. C. ABBOTT.
FAIR HAVEN, CONN.