OR, SKETCHES OF CHRISTIAN LIFE IN ENGLAND IN THE OLDEN TIME. BY THE AUTHOR OF "Chronicles of the Schönberg-Cotta Family. Mrs. Elizabeth Rundle Charles Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by M. W. DODD, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the MIDTIC ・⠀⠀⠀⠀ ・・・ EDWARD O. JENKINS, Printer and Stereotyper, 20 NORTH WILLIAM STRELT. 1964, by States, for the INTRODUCTION. T is the high office of history to restore the Past to a new life. All great events have a twofold life; once, as they actually occurred, and again, as they are revived upon the historic page for the benefit of after times. The historian must first of all give an accurate record of facts in their just order; but more than this is needed, if the Past is to speak persuasively to the Present. It must be so reanimated as to bring to view living men and scenes, that the imagination may be enlisted and the pulse quickened. To the sharp outline of fact, fiction may add its embellishments, and thus allure many who would otherwise pass carelessly by the great lessons of human history. The author of the Chronicles of the Schönberg-Cotta Family is already well known and loved in many households of our land. In that attractive volume, the story of the Great Reformation, its spiritual conflicts and heroes, were so strikingly described, as to deepen our sense of the great debt we owe to those who then con (3) |