WHILE I was engaged in writing the following brief work, again and
again the question arose in my mind, “Can I make subjects so deep
and difficult really interesting and intelligible to the young? The
importance of reading Old Testament types in the light thrown on
them by the Gospel cannot, indeed, be overrated, especially in these
perilous times; but can a child be taught thus to read them?”
The attempt thus to teach is made in the following pages; and I would
earnestly request parents and teachers not merely to place the little
volume in the hands of children as a prettily-illustrated story-book,
but to read it with them, prepared to answer questions and to solve
difficulties. Sunday books should supplement, not take the place of,
oral instruction. A writer may give earnest thought and labor to the
endeavor to make religious subjects interesting to the young; but what
influence has the silent page compared with that of a father expressing
his own settled convictions, or that of a mother who has the power to
speak at once to the head and the heart?