e is chiefly laid.

The Szeklers, who also call themselves Attilans, claim descent from a
portion of that vast invading horde of Attila the Hun, which fell back
in defeat from the battle of Chalons, in the year 451, and has occupied
the eastern portion of Transylvania ever since. The Magyars are of the
same or a nearly kindred race, and speak the same language; but their
ancestry is traced back to a later band of invaders who forced their way
in from the East early in the tenth century. The Wallachians, or
"Strangers," form another considerable group in the population of
Hungary. "Rumans" they prefer to call themselves, and they claim descent
from the ancient Dacians, and from the conquering army led against the
latter by Trajan. Besides these, Germans, Croatians, Serbs, Ruthenians,
Slovaks, and other races, contribute in varying proportions to the
heterogeneous population of the country.

The Hungarian title of the book is "Egy az Isten,"--"One is the
Lord,"--the watchword of the Unitarians of Transylvania. The want of an
adequate English equivalent of this motto has led to the adoption of
another title. In this, as in all the author's romances, love, war, and
adventure furnish the plot and incident and vital interest of the
narrative.

As early as 1568, three years after the introduction of Unitarianism
into Poland, John Sigismund Szapolyai, the liberal and enlightened
voivode of Transylvania, issued a decree, granting his people religious
toleration in the broadest sense. The establishment of the Unitarian
Church in Hungary, on an equal footing with the Roman Catholic, the
Lutheran, and the Calvinist, dates from that time. Through many trials
and persecutions, through periods of alternate prosperity and adversity,
it has bravely maintained its existence up to the present day, and now
numbers nearly sixty-eight thousand members. Though a comparatively
small body, the Unitarians of Hungary "hold together well," as our
author says, and exert an influence in education and in all that makes
for the higher life, quite out of proportion to their numbers.

As in so many of Dr. Jokai's novels that have appeared in English, it
has been found necessary to abridge the present work in translation. Not
until we have endowed publishing houses which can afford to disregard
the question of sales, shall we see this author's books issued in all
their pitiless prolixity, in any country or language but his own. It is
to be noted, in