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OF

INSTRUCTIVE EXTRACTS:

BEING

No. V.

OF

A NEW SERIES OF SCHOOL-BOOKS.

COMPILED FOR THE

SCOTTISH SCHOOL-BOOK ASSOCIATION.

STEREOTYPE EDITION.

EDINBURGH:

PUBLISHED FOR THE ASSOCIATION,

BY WILLIAM WHYTE & CO.,

LATE BOOKSELLERS TO QUEEN ADELAIDE,
13, GEORGE STREET.

Price, Bound, One Shilling and Sixpence.

ENTERED IN STATIONERS HALL.

PREFACE.

IN preparing for the use of the Parochial Schools of Scotland & Course of Reading in Three Collections of very moderate price, in which the pupil is gradually advanced from simple but useful subjects to those of a more difficult and scientific character, the Committee entrusted with the charge of compilation have kept two objects steadily in view. First, that the lessons should be of an interesting kind, calculated to engage the mind of the juvenile reader; secondly, that they should contain valuable information in the various departments of useful knowledge, affording ample scope for moral and intellectual exercise,-so that the pupil, while learning to read with propriety, may at the same time have his mind imperceptibly stored with many valuable facts, and much useful information. Each volume is divided into Sections, and whenever the nature of the subject would admit, a proper arrangement has been carefully studied, and the subjects brought forward in a regular and methodical manner. This will be particularly observable in the Sections of Natural History, Geography, and Scottish History. In the first of the Sections now mentioned, instead of giving, according to the usual mode, the description of animals in succession that have no possible affinity with one another, all of the same kind are here given in one group; so that the whole wears the appearance of a system—at least as much so as any mere selection can be expected to do.

The Vocabulary at the end ought to be committed to memory, ten or twenty words, according to the pupil's progress, being prescribed daily; and the other meanings besides those set down in the definition noticed when necessary by the master.

MURRAY AND GIBB, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.

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SECTION I.

RELIGIOUS AND MORAL PIECES.

I. THE BIBLE.

THE Word BIBLE means book, and the sacred volume is so called because it is the book of books-the best book. The word SCRIPTURE signifies writings. The Bible was not written at one time, or by one person; but consists of various parts, written at different times by different men. It is divided into two Testaments, called the Ola and the New, chiefly with reference to the time when they were published; the Old being published before the coming of Christ, and the New after his death. As a Testament, the Bible is the will of our gracious Redeemer, full of noble gifts and legacies, confirmed to us by the death of the Testator. The great promise of the Old Testament is a Saviour to come; the New shows us that this Saviour is come, and gives us another great promise (though this promise is not excluded from the Old,) the promise of the Holy Ghost.

The Apocrypha, sometimes bound up with the Bible, is no part of the inspired volume, and has no divine authority. The books which compose it were not admitted into the sacred canon until the council of Trent, which was held in the year 1550, under Pope Pius IV., and they have therefore no claim to be considered a part of the Word of God.

The Canon of Scripture is that body of Sacred books which serves for the rule of faith and practice. It is the authorised catalogue of sacred writings. The word canon is derived from a Greek word signifying rule.

The Old Testament was chiefly written in the Hebrew language, and the New Testament in the Greek. The present authorised English Bible was translated out of

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