The concluding lessons are offered with great diffidence, and with many
doubts whether the absence of detail may not prevent them from being
easily remembered; but it has been felt important that the connection of
the actual Church with that of the Apostles and Martyrs, should be made
evident to the general mind, and the present condition of the Church
accounted for. The choice of subjects has been very difficult; but it
is hoped that those selected may be those most needful to be known as
evidence that our present Church has every claim to the promise of Him
Who will abide with her for ever.

If older and more critical persons than those for whom the little work
is intended should cast an eye over it, the author hopes that they will
bear in mind how the need of being both brief and clear is apt to render
statements apparently bolder, and sometimes harsher, than where there is
room for qualification or argument; and that they will not always accuse
the work of unthinking boldness of assertion, where the softening is
omitted for fear both of wearying and perplexing the young reader.

The chronology, for the sake of the convenience of teachers and
scholars, is that of the margin of our Bibles.

The questions at the end are chiefly intended to direct the mind of
the learner to the point of each lesson. It will be perceived that the
answers must he prepared as well from the Bible as from the book; and
in most cases the teacher will in use have to multiply, and perhaps to
simplify them. One of their especial objects has been to show the ever
brightening stream of prophecy, and afterwards, its accomplishment alike
with regard to heathen nations, to the history of the Jews, of the
Church, and, above all, to the Life of our Blessed Lord; and it is hoped