REV. W. H. POOLE, LL.D.,

AUTHOR OF "Ripe Grapes, orR, THE FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT;" "THE NATURE,
CAUSES AND CURES OF ANGER;" "THE GIFT of the HOLY GHOST,
AND HOW OBTAINED;" "HISTORY, THE TRUE KEY TO PROPHECY."

INTRODUCTION BY

THE REV. W. H. WITHROW, D.D., F.R.S.C.

"There is a principle which is a bar against all informa
tion, which is proof against all argument, and which cannot
fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. This principle
is contempt prior to examination."-DR. PALEY.

A greater than Paley has said:-" He that answereth a
matter before he heareth it, it is a folly, and a shame unto
him."-PROVERBS xviii. 13.

TORONTO:

WILLIAM BRIGGS.

MONTREAL: C. W. COATES.

HALIFAX: SF HUESTIS.

1889.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 47×107

INTRODUCTION.

HE history of God's chosen people Israel can never be a subject of indifference to the Christian mind. The indebtedness of Christendom to this race can never be computed nor repaid. Through it came chiefly the oracles of God to man. Through it came the institutions, the jurisprudence, the philosophy which largely mould the thought of all Christian nations to-day. Yet no race was ever repaid with blacker ingratitude for the benefits which it conferred. The tale of its persecution by fire and faggot, by rack and dungeon, is one of the darkest pages in European history. Pillaged and plundered, scattered and peeled, branded and mutilated, smitten by every hand and execrated by every lip, the Jews seemed to bear in all its bitterness of woe, the terrible curse invoked by their fathers, "His blood-the blood of the Innocent One-be upon us and our children." Trampled and beaten to the earth, decimated and slaughtered, they have yet, like the trodden grass that ranker grows, increased and multiplied in spite of their persecution. Those "Ishmaels and Hagars of mankind,” exiled from the home of their fathers, and harried from land to land, have verily eaten the unleavened bread and bitter herbs of