THE design of this little work is to lead children to understand, and to delight in the Scriptures.
If adults meet with difficulties in the sacred text, which commentaries often remove, children must necessarily meet with many more, some of which this little book may clear up. Since it is evident that commentaries would not suit the volatile minds of children, however simply they might be written, some other kind of help ought to be provided for them. The best assistance would no doubt be afforded by the parent's voice: for no book can so forcibly arrest the attention or touch the heart as the remarks of a tender parent. But where children do not enjoy this advantage, a book may in some measure supply its place; and where they do possess it, may recall to mind parental instructions.
Many interesting histories have been omitted, because the writer feared to swell the size of the work, and judged it better to relate the principal events in detail than to give an abridged account of all.