was not true a few centuries ago.
The presses were, perhaps naturally and inevitably, almost exclusively
occupied with books for the learned world. To be sure, the Legenda
Aurea, of which I shall speak later, although not intended primarily for
children, proved a great boon to them. So did the Chap Books of England.
But it was not until the middle of the eighteenth century, when John
Newbery set up his book shop at St. Paul's Churchyard, London, that any
special attention was given by printers to the publication, in
attractive form, of juvenile books. Newbery's children's books made him
famous in his day, but the world seems to have forgotten him. Yet he
deserves a monument along with AEsop, and La Fontaine, and Kate
Greenaway, and Andersen, and Scott and Henty, and all the other greater
and lesser lights who have done so much to gladden the heart and enlarge
the mind of childhood and youth.

But from Newbery's day to this year of our Lord nineteen hundred and
three is a very long jump in what we may call the evolution of juvenile
literature, for the preparation of reading matter for young people seems
now almost to have reached its climax. There is one field, however, and
that the one which this volume tries to cover, which strangely enough
seems to have been almost neglected. Of "goody-goody" Sunday School
library books of an old-fashioned type, which are insipid and lacking
both in virility of thought and literary form, there are, alas, already
too many. What we need is something to take their place, something which
will furnish real literature, and yet which from subject matter and
manner of handling is specially adapted to what I still like to call
Sunday reading, a phrase which unfortunately seems to mean little to
most people to-day. Bearing this in mind, it is the purpose of this book
to gather together, in attractive form, such religious classics as are
specially fitted to interest and uplift young people.

There is a wide variety in so far as _subject matter_, _source_ and
_form_ are concerned, but a certain unity is given to the contents of
the volume by the religious note, which, whether brought prominently
forward or not, is found alike in all the selections.

The Bible has furnished directly or indirectly most of the _subject
matter_ here used. The biographies of various Scripture characters
appear in large numbers. Adam and Noah head the list, and Peter and
Paul bring up the end of a procession of wort