CHAPTER 1. DUNBAR ''Twas on a night, an evening brightWhen the dew began to fa',Lady Margaret was walking up and down,Looking over her castle wa'.' The battlements of a castle were, in disturbed times, the only recreation-ground of the ladies and play-place of the young people. Dunbar Castle, standing on steep rocks above the North Sea, was not only inaccessible on that side, but from its donjon tower commanded a magnificent view, both of the... more...

CHAPTER I. THE TRUST. "I brought them here as to a sanctuary."SOUTHEY. Most of us have heard of the sad times in the middle of the seventeenth century, when Englishmen were at war with one another and quiet villages became battlefields. We hear a great deal about King and Parliament, great lords and able generals, Cavaliers and Roundheads, but this story is to help us to think how it must have gone in those times with quiet folk in cottages... more...

CHAPTER I. THE LITTLE WAIF. On a spring day, in the year 1568, Mistress Talbot sat in her lodging at Hull, an upper chamber, with a large latticed window, glazed with the circle and diamond leading perpetuated in Dutch pictures, and opening on a carved balcony, whence, had she been so minded, she could have shaken hands with her opposite neighbour. There was a richly carved mantel-piece, with a sea-coal fire burning in it, for though it was... more...

CHAPTER I. ITALY. I am going to tell you next about the most famous nation in the world. Going westward from Greece another peninsula stretches down into the Mediterranean. The Apennine Mountains run like a limb stretching out of the Alps to the south eastward, and on them seems formed that land, shaped somewhat like a leg, which is called Italy. Round the streams that flowed down from these hills, valleys of fertile soil formed themselves,... more...

CHAP. I.—OLYMPUS. am going to tell you the history of the most wonderful people who ever lived.  But I have to begin with a good deal that is not true; for the people who descended from Japhet’s son Javan, and lived in the beautiful islands and peninsulas called Greece, were not trained in the knowledge of God like the Israelites, but had to guess for themselves.  They made strange stories, partly from the old beliefs they... more...

INTRODUCTION. It has been my endeavour in the ensuing narratives to bring together such of the more distinguished Missionaries of the English and American nations as might best illustrate the character and growth of Mission work in the last two centuries.  It is impossible to make it a real history of the Missions of modern times.  If I could, I would have followed in the track of Mr. Maclear’s admirable volume, but the field is... more...

"God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things."—Heb. i, l,   "Yes; so it was ere Jesus came—  Alternate then His Altar flame  Blazed up and died away,  And Silence took her torn with Song,  And Solitude with the fair... more...