IS GRATEFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED

BY THE AUTHOR.




PUBLISHERS' NOTE.


In preparing a new edition of Dr. Lord's great work, the "Beacon Lights
of History," it has been necessary to make some rearrangement of
lectures and volumes. Dr. Lord began with his volume on classic
"Antiquity," and not until he had completed five volumes did he return
to the remoter times of "Old Pagan Civilizations" (reaching back to
Assyria and Egypt) and the "Jewish Heroes and Prophets." These issued,
he took up again the line of great men and movements, and brought it
down to modern days.

The "Old Pagan Civilizations," of course, stretch thousands of years
before the Hebrews, and the volume so entitled would naturally be the
first. Then follows the volume on "Jewish Heroes and Prophets," ending
with St. Paul and the Christian Era. After this volume, which in any
position, dealing with the unique race of the Jews, must stand by
itself, we return to the brilliant picture of the Pagan centuries, in
"Ancient Achievements" and "Imperial Antiquity," the latter coming down
to the Fall of Rome in the fourth century A.D., which ends the era of
"Antiquity" and begins the "Middle Ages."