PREFACE.

IN presenting this book to the Christian reader, we have aimed to fill a vacancy in the literature of the Christian Churches, and especially the Sabbath School literature. Sabbath Schools are a blessed auxiliary or help in the great work of training up children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and there has been increasing facilities for this great work in Question Books, Reference Books, Library Books, and Books of Song, prepared for use in the schools. With this Biblical Biography we have desired to afford advantages to Superintendents and Teachers in preparing for their work, and the scholars of the Bible classes in the schools in preparing for their recitations; as also, to familiarize all Bible students with the history of Bible characters.

In the history of Bible men and women, we have virtues exemplified that may be admired and imitated-vices that may be detested and shunned. The principles of the religion of the Bible are strikingly exemplified, and the doctrines of religion are beautifully illustrated in the history of holy men and women.

The larger and best prepared Theological Dictionaries are not within the reach of many who are seeking an acquaintance with Bible characters, and those works are so meagre in Bible Biography as to be very unsatisfactory. There are but a few of the men of the Bible referred to.

In this work will be found arranged in alphabetical order a history of nearly all Bible men and women of whom there is a

record, and it is adapted to Bible readers of all denominations alike. We have aimed to supply a want existing in the literature of the general church of Christ, and we think the Roman Catholic as well as the Protestant, and Jew as well as the Gentile, may, by perusing these pages, familiarize themselves with incidents in the history of characters in whom they are interested.

The names of the Patriarchs of the Ante-diluvian and Post-diluvian ages are familiar to many, and yet there are many interesting incidents recorded in their lives that Bible readers are not familiar with. And this is also true of the prophets from Moses to the last of the minor prophets, and of their governors and judges from Joshua to Samuel; and of their kings from Saul their first king, to Zedekiah their last one before the captivity. And so from Zerubbabel and Nehemiah to the Herod who was reigning when Jesus was born.

New Testament characters, as their history is recorded, are frought with great interest, and we may well desire an acquaintance with them.

We have aimed to present not only the Biography of Bible men, but of Bible women also-who seem to be almost ignored in the biographical department of our theological dictionaries. There are many important characters among them not referred to at all--and why should not Bible students, many of whom are females, become acquainted with the sacred history of those of their own sex? All Bible students should become familiar with the women as well as with the men of the Bible. Woman was

created to be an helpmeet for man, and her formation was the last and crowning work of the great creator. She was made for an associate with man, and has ever been his companion and a full sharer in the woes brought on him by the transgression of the divine law.

The subtile serpent was cursed first, and then the woman, and afterwards the man. And this was the order in sin and of sinners in bringing about the fatal fall; the serpent beguiled Eve, and Eve tempted Adam, and Adam yielded to the temptation.

The curse that was pronounced on the woman was, "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception, in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee." Though in the creation man and woman was formed with equal rights as to ruling, yet after the fall it was not so---woman was to be subject to the will of her husband.

Though she was thus first in the transgression, and her position to some extent as to equality with her husband changed, yet she was honored beyond man in being the mother of the Redeemer of the fallen race. When the Creator, whose authority had been trampled upon by Satan, by the woman, and by the man, called the two transgressors, Adam and Eve, to an account, before pronouncing the curse upon them, he pronounced a curse upon the serpent. "And the Lord God said unto the serpent, because thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life."

This curse was followed by the promise of a Savior, as the offspring of the woman. And in keeping with this promise that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head, is the declaration of the inspired writer under the New Testament dispensation: "The Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil.”

In the "Sacred Record" we have the names of many eminent women; and as their history is set forth we behold virtues exemplified and honors conferred that mark them as ornaments to the world, and noble examples for the imitation of their sex.

There were several who were endued with the spirit of prophecy, among whom we might name Miriam, the distinguished sister of Moses and Aaron, who has been styled "The Virgin Prophetess." Deborah, who was the first woman that occupied the position of civil ruler. She left the City of Palm Trees to encourage the heart of her general, Barak, in the battle with Jabin, the king of Canaan. As she occupied a position on the mountain side, where she could see the movements of her victorious general, she composed a song of triumph, full of prophetic declaration.

Huldah was so important as a prophetess, that when the king would have the long-lost copy of the law, that had been found, read, he sent the manuscript to this woman, though the prophet Jeremiah was then living, it is supposed, at Libnah, where he might easily have been consulted. Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, and the Virgin Mary, her cousin, were both favored with the spirit of prophecy. So Anna had the mantle of prophecy on her when she recognized, in the person of the babe of Mary, the Divine Redeemer, and "spake of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem." And the four daughters of Philip, the Evangelist, were thus favored of God.

Among the women of the Bible are many who were eminent as mothers for their instructions to, and their influence over their children. Of such was Jochebed, who had the early training of the rescued Moses; Sarah, who had the education of the Son of Promise; the wife of Manoah, to whom the angel of the Lord appeared twice, and who followed tenaciously the instructions of the angel in the education of Samson; Hannah, who received the promise of a son while worshiping God at Shiloh, and who, when her son was three years old, placed him in the charge of the ven erable Eli; Lois and Eunice, the mother and grandmother of Timothy, who taught him the Scriptures from his early childhood

And what maternal affection did these and other women exhibit.

Among the women of the Bible we have some of the most touching examples of devotion, in the various relations of life, that are to be found in all the history of the human family. As instances, the two Moabitish women that married the sons of Naomi. How devoted to the interests of their stricken and sorrowing mother-in-law; especially Ruth, who forsook her country and kindred to attend a lone, disconsolate woman to the land of Judea, her former home. Rizpah, the wife of Saul, may be referred to; and her affection, which led her, when her sons were hanged, for many dreary days and nights to watch their dead bodies.

There are many examples among them of pure philanthropy. As such was Esther, the queen of Ahasureus. She risked her station as queen, and even her life, to save her imperiled people. But there are, also, examples of wickedness; as was Jezebel, the wife of Ahab, and Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah, with many others. For further notice, reference is made to the following pages.

We also present to the reader-in an appendix-a history of Bible men and women not named, running through the Old and New Testaments; and though the persons referred to are, many of them, with their history, referred to in articles in the body of the work, yet a facility for reference to unnamed persons will be found here, that is not given in any other book presented to the Christian public, and we have aimed with it to make our Biblical Biography more complete.

I desire to express my indebtedness, in the preparation of this volume, to the authors of various Dictionaries of the Holy Bible; the biographical departments of which I have consulted, and