Chapter I: Preface

WHILE I was engaged in writing the following brief work, again and again the question arose in my mind, “Can I make subjects so deep and difficult really interesting and intelligible to the young? The importance of reading Old Testament types in the light thrown on them by the Gospel cannot, indeed, be overrated, especially in these perilous times; but can a child be taught thus to read them?”

The attempt thus to teach is made in the following pages; and I would earnestly request parents and teachers not merely to place the little volume in the hands of children as a prettily-illustrated story-book, but to read it with them, prepared to answer questions and to solve difficulties. Sunday books should supplement, not take the place of, oral instruction. A writer may give earnest thought and labor to the endeavor to make religious subjects interesting to the young; but what influence has the silent page compared with that of a father expressing his own settled convictions, or that of a mother who has the power to speak at once to the head and the heart?

A. L. O. E.

CONTENTS.

PAGE
I. WANTING WORK 9
II. THE TABERNACLE 27
III. THE CURTAINS 37
IV. PRECIOUS THINGS 49
V. PREPARATION 59
VI. TYPES 76
VII. DRAWN ASIDE 89
VIII. SACRIFICES 102
IX. CONCEALMENT 113
X. DEAD FAITH AND LIVING FAITH 121
XI. LEPROSY 136
XII. NAAMAN 149
XIII. THE TWINS 158
XIV. WORK 173
XV. DIFFERENT MOTIVES 186
XVI. THE HIGH-PRIEST 201
XVII. THE BIRTHDAY GIFTS 215
XVIII. THE ARRIVAL 225
XIX. DISAPPOINTMENT 239
XX. CONFESSION 250
XXI. CONCLUSION 260

SHORT STORIES, BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

THE BEAR 271
THE TIGER-CUB 281
NOT ONE TOO MANY 292
THE IRON RING 303
THE ILL WIND 313

THE

CHILDREN’S TABERNACLE.