PREFACE.

In the latter part of the year 1859, the Committee of the Sunday School Union issued a prospectus announcing their intention to publish THE BIBLICAL TREASURY, and explanatory of its objects we make the following extract:

"Much has been done, during the last few years, to aid teachers in the work of Scriptural instruction, by means of Commentaries, Notes, Maps, Manuals, and other helps of various kinds. These have been, to a large extent, of an expository character, almost devoid of illustration, and supplying but few helps to 'pictorial teaching.' Their primary objects have been to assist teachers to understand Scripture truth, and the methods by which it may be communicated to children; nor, with an ever-changing agency, can these important aims be over-estimated. The Committee of the Sunday School Union, however, feel that they shall be aiding their fellow-labourers still further by the publication of a serial devoted to the varied forms of Biblical illustration.

"Science and literature are the handmaids of revelation, and we have only to survey their various departments to find illustrations of moral and spiritual truth scattered around us on every hand. Most Sunday school teachers have met with striking facts and incidents which they would fain have remembered; but, in many cases, all recollection of the source whence they were derived has passed away. It is one thing, however, to know that exhaustless supplies of illustrative matter exist, and another to have those supplies available for use. Hence it will be the aim of the proposed work to glean from all available sources such information as may tend in any way to illustrate or elucidate the Scriptures by reference to Oriental Customs, Natural History and Philosophy, Topography, Historical Events, Missionary Incidents,

Idolatrous Usages, Biblical Criticism, and the facts of Every-day Life."

For some time past,

The editorship of THE BIBLICAL TREASURY was in the first instance undertaken by a much-beloved brother who in the spring of 1861 was suddenly called to his rest. The duty then devolved upon another, who in the providence of God has been permitted to fulfil it to the present time. With the issue of this volume, however, his labours will close. the Committee have contemplated a termination of the work in its present form, so as to make it more decidedly a standard book of reference. The publication of the Sunday School Chronicle has suggested the present as a suitable opportunity to carry out the proposed change by the incorporation of The Biblical Treasury with The Sunday School Teacher, which will for the future be issued under the title of "THE SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHER: A BIBLICAL AND EDUCATIONAL MAGAZINE."

In reviewing his labours (extending over nearly fourteen years), the editor feels that he has fully carried out the design of the originators of The Biblical Treasury; and has largely contributed towards the completion of a work-now consisting of fifteen volumes-which will form one of the most valuable and at the same time one of the cheapest of its class.

To those esteemed friends who have at various times rendered literary assistance he tenders his hearty thanks; and, in bidding them and his readers farewell, he would earnestly bespeak their sympathy and help for