Classics Books

I The Roots of Religion The church with which we are to deal in the pages which follow is the Christian church in the United States, comprising the entire body of Christian disciples who are organized into religious societies, and are engaged in Christian work and worship. This church is not all included in one organization; it is made up of many different sects and denominations, some of which have... more...

PREFACE During the past half century the attitude of many men toward the Bible has undergone a decided change. The old confidence seems to be gone; a feeling of uncertainty and of unrest has taken its place. This small volume is intended to set forth the Christian view of the Old Testament, and to furnish answers to some of the questions men are asking concerning the Sacred Scriptures of the Hebrews,... more...

LECTURE I PART I. GENERAL PRINCIPLES Haereditate acquisivi testimonia tua in aeternum:Quia exsultatio cordis mei sunt. The Christian use of the Psalter is as old as Christianity itself. The new-born Catholic Church, returning from her earliest conflict with the kingdoms of this world, found the most natural expression of her faith and her need in the words of the 2nd Psalm: Why did the Gentiles... more...

CHAPTER I. "THREE ON A DOORSTEP." In a poor part of London, but not in the very poorest part—two children sat on a certain autumn evening, side by side on a doorstep. The eldest might have been ten, the youngest eight. The eldest was a girl, the youngest a boy. Drawn up in front of these children, looking into their little faces with hungry, loving, pathetic eyes, lay a mongrel dog. The three... more...

THE WRECK OF THE HESPERUS It was the schooner Hesperus,  That sailed the wintry sea;And the skipper had taken his little daughter,  To bear him company. Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax,  Her cheeks like the dawn of day,And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds,  That ope in the month of May. The skipper he stood beside the helm,  His pipe was in his mouth,And he watched how the veering... more...

CHAPTER I. THE BUILDING OF THE ABBEY. Twelve hundred years ago, in the reign of King Sebert the Saxon, a poor fisherman called Edric, was casting his nets one Sunday night into the Thames. He lived on the Isle of Thorns, a dry spot in the marshes, some three miles up the river from the Roman fortress of London. The silvery Thames washed against the island's gravelly shores. It was covered with... more...

CHAPTER I. A few years ago, in the Dorotheen-strasse, in the midst of the Latin Quarter of Berlin, whose quiet, student-like appearance threatens to become effaced by the growing elegance of the capital, a small, narrow, unpretending two-story house, stood humbly, as if intimidated, between its broad-shouldered neighbors, though every year it received a washing of a delicate pink hue, and recently had... more...

CHAPTER I A MISHAP AND ITS CONSEQUENCES "Will you please let me have two cream cakes?" The young woman behind the counter of the small bakery glanced kindly at the maker of this request, a little girl in a rather neat-looking dress, with a dark, earnest face and a pair of big, solemn brown eyes. "They're nice and fresh to-day," she remarked pleasantly; "they came out of the... more...

CHAPTER I. THE PROBLEM OF THE CHILDREN The problem of the children is the problem of the State. As we mould the children of the toiling masses in our cities, so we shape the destiny of the State which they will rule in their turn, taking the reins from our hands. In proportion as we neglect or pass them by, the blame for bad government to come rests upon us. The cities long since held the balance of... more...

CHAPTER I. Lay your course south-east half east from the Campanella. If the weather is what it should be in late summer you will have a fresh breeze on the starboard quarter from ten in the morning till four or five o'clock in the afternoon. Sail straight across the wide gulf of Salerno, and when you are over give the Licosa Point a wide berth, for the water is shallow and there are reefs along... more...