the character of the era, and the scene in which the incidents occurred, and such explanations of the terms in which they are recorded, as may, consistently with the limits of this work, be drawn from the labors of the learned of ancient and modern times, which are within the writer's reach. Various and numerous are the books that swell the list of faithful and honest references; many and weighty the volumes that have been turned over, in the long course of research; ancient and venerable the dust, which has been shaken into suffocating clouds about the searcher's head, and have obscured his vision, as he dragged many a forgotten folio from the slumber of ages, to array the modern plunderer in the shreds and patches of antique lore. Histories, travels, geographies, maps, commentaries, criticisms, introductions, and lexicons, have been "daily and nightly turned in the hand;" and of this labor some fruit is offered on every page. But the unstained source of sacred history! the pure well-spring, at which the wearied searcher always refreshed himself, after unrequited toils, through dry masses of erudition, was the simple story of the Apostles and Evangelists, told by themselves. In this same simple story, indeed, were found the points on which the longest labor was required; yet these, at best only illustrated, not improved, by all the labors of the learned of various ages, were the materials of the work. These are the preparations of months and years; the execution must decide on their real value,—and that is yet to come.
A list of the various works which have furnished the materials for this book might
be proper here; but in order to insure its completeness and accuracy, it is deferred
to the end of the volume.
A VIEW OF THE WORLD, as it was at the when the apostles
began the work of spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ,
may be convenient to remind some readers, and necessary to inform
others, in what way its political organization operated to aid
or hinder the progress of the faith. The peculiarities of the government
of the regions of civilization, were closely involved in
the results of this religious revolution, and may be considered as
having been, on the whole, most desirably disposed for the triumphant
establishment of the dominion of Christ.
From the shores of the Atlantic to the banks of the Indus, the sway of the Roman Caesar was acknowledged, by the millions of Western and Southern Europe, Northern Africa and South-western Asia. The strong grasp of warlike power was a bond which
