WE have long desired to bring this work before our readers; and the recent publication of a second volume, which brings the history from A.D. 814 down to 1529, gives the fitting opportunity. In a third volume, the hope is, if the Lord will, that it may be continued till our own day.
The author has spared no pains to present a thoroughly fair account of the main facts of Christendom, and of the men who have taken a prominent part in it for good or ill. Unpretending in form it is no mere compendium of Dupin, Milner, or Mosheim. All that the more recent researches and discussions of Greenwood, Milman, Neander, J. C. Robertson, Waddington, and many other laborers in the ecclesiastical field have been able to glean, is here laid under contribution: so that no single work contains such a full and reliable view of all that is important to be known by the intelligent Christian reader. But there are other features which distinguish these two compact volumes from others, however able or elaborate. It is the first ecclesiastical history from the pen of one who, with ardent love for souls and marked blessing from the Lord in the practical work of evangelizing, combines an adequate knowledge of what the church really is, as the body of Christ and, the house of God; the first, consequently, with the right sense of what is due to the Lord's glory in both respects.