Project Gutenberg's Bible Stories and Religious Classics, by Philip P. Wells

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Title: Bible Stories and Religious Classics

Author: Philip P. Wells

Release Date: December 4, 2003 [EBook #10380]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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BIBLE STORIES AND RELIGIOUS CLASSICS

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ANSON PHELPS STOKES, JR.

_ILLUSTRATED BY_ BEATRICE STEVENS

1903

INTRODUCTION

There never was a time when the demand for books for young people was so
great as it is to-day or when so much was being done to meet the demand.
"Children's Counter," "Boys' Books," are signs which, especially at the
Christmas season, attract the eye in every large book shop. Tales of
adventure, manuals about various branches of nature study, historical
romances, lives of heroes--in fact, almost every kind of book--is to be
found in abundance, beautifully illustrated, attractively bound, well
printed, all designed and written especially for the youth of our land.
It is indeed an encouraging sign. It means that the child of to-day is
being introduced to the world's best in literature and science and
history and art in simple and gradual ways.

In the Middle Ages stories of the martyrs and legends of the Church,
along with some simple form of catechetical instruction, formed the
basis of a child's mental and religious training. Later, during and
after the Crusades, the stories of war and the mysteries of the East
increased the stock in trade for the homes of Europe; but still the
horizon remained a narrow one. Even the invention of printing did not
bring to the young as many direct advantages as would naturally be
expected. To-day, when Christian missionaries set up a printing press in
some distant island of the sea, the first books which they print in the
vernacular are almost invariably those parts of the Bible, such as the
Gospels and the stories of Genesis, which most appeal to the young, and,
what is of special importance, they have the young directly and mainly
in mind in their publishing work. This