APPENDIX. PART SECOND. OUTLINE OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY. The chart opposite is designed to fix in the memory, by two simple devices, an outline of the world's history, as a background for the chronological data following and for other studies of historic details. By way of preface, the date of creation is noted as "4000 B. C. or earlier." Bible history would allow the expansion of Usher's estimate, 4000 B. C., to meet the shrinking figures of geology, which now require only 8000 to 10,000 years as the age of man. (See recent studies of the glacial age by Professor G. F. Wright and others.) The flood is placed at about 2500 B. C. (The Bible gives no exact date.) It is significant, in connection with the biblical records of creation and the flood, that the latest word of science (Charles Dixon, Fortnightly Review, April, 1895) is that the dispersal of life was not, as previously held by science, from the poles, but from a central equatorial belt of land. The confusion of tongues is placed at 2247 B. C. That all languages have branched out of one is the ever-strengthening verdict of science. The first device given in the chart to aid the memory to hold a sufficient outline of universal history is the representation of the great world-empires and others by a succession of peaks, arranged in chronological order, the height approximately indicating the relative size of these empires, at their largest extension severally, and the base showing their duration exactly, each empire being marked with the name of the ruler under whom it reached its largest geographical extent, usually accompanied by the date of his death, if known. The first great worldempire, that of Egypt, is accordingly marked with the name of Thotmes III., who reigned about 1600 B. C., just preceding the Ramessids, under whom the empire declined because of their injustice to their Hebrew slaves. The next great empire to arise-a smaller one, however, than any other on the chart in geographical extent-was the kingdom of Solomon, who died 975 B. C. Then arose the empire of Assyria, which reached its largest extent under Sennacherib about 680 B. C. It was succeeded by the empire of Persia, which reached its greatest dimensions under Darius the Great, who died 486 B. C. Then came the greater but briefer Greek empire under Alexander the Great, in the fourth century B. C. After a period of petty kingdoms, Rome reached its widest sway under Trajan, who died 116 A. D. After Rome fell, 476 A. D., there came another period of petty kingdoms, but early in the eighth century the new Roman empire of the Germanic tribes began to develop, and reached its widest sway under Charlemagne, who died 814 A. D. The Mohammedan empire of Arabia, which had begun in the seventh century, reached its widest sway under Mohammed II., about the middle of the fifteenth century. Spain had the next turn at preeminence under Charles V., who, in 1556 A. D., was both King of Spain and Emperor of Germany. Great Britain reached its largest territorial sway under George II., who died 1760, when India and Canada had been gained and the other American colonies had not been lost. China reached its largest extent under Kien-Lung in 1796, before Russia and Great Britain had secured portions of its territory. France had widest sway in 1807, when Napoleon had conquered all Europe except Great Britain, besides portions of Asia and Africa. The United States reached its largest dimensions in 1867, when Secretary Seward purchased Alaska. Russia-the only country in the list here given, save the United States, which was in 1895 as large as it had ever beenreached the dimensions then existing under Alexander III., but is likely to put this statement out of date at any time by new additions. The dates and names given furnish an outline of history that can easily be copied in memory. But it should be buttressed and supplemented by the second device, suggested by a briefer use of it by Professor W. W. White, which connects two similar events of similar dates, the one before, the other after, Christ, by a semicircular line. In 1921 a majority of the people of the United States, at present rates of centralization, will live in cities of eight thousand or more inhabitants. This is naturally associated by contrast with the rural period of Abram, who was called 1921 B. C. A line from our own time 1900 A. D. to 1900 B. C. helps us to remember the age of Abraham. So it is easy to fix in memory the year when Moses was born, 1571 B. C., by associating it with the date when Luther, a kindred spirit, nailed the theses to the church door and so inaugurated the Reformation-the latter date being made of the same figures with one transposed, 1517 A. D. The same line associates the year of the discovery of America, which we easily remember, 1492 A. D., with the year of the exodus, 1491 B. C., which we should otherwise forget. King Alfred, the poet statesman, died 901 A. D., which helps us to remember that Solomon died 975 B. C. The battle of Tours, 732 A. D., which turned back the Mohammedan armies forever from Europe, is naturally associated with the divine overthrow of Sennacherib in 760 (sung by Isaiah, and so fixing his place in history), by which the Assyrians were driven back for a century from Palestine. Justinian, who promulgated his Christian code of laws in 528 A. D., we link with Daniel, who, in 528 B. C., prophesied of the world's conquest by the law of Christ. The beginning of Papacy, 445 A. D., and fall of Rome, 476 A. D., we associate with the rebuilding of Jerusalem by Ezra, 445 B. C. The story of Constantine beholding the cross in the sky as the token of victory, 331 A. D., we remember by association with a similar legend of Alexander the Great, who, in 333 B. C., when about to attack Jerusalem, is said to have been turned back by beholding the High Priest in his glorious robes, because he had previously seen the same figure in a dream. In the center of the chart is CHRIST, the Lord of time as well as of eternity, whose royal marks, “B. C.” and “ A. D.," are on all the facts of history. CHRONOLOGICAL DATA OF HUMANE PROGRESS. SHOWING THE INFLUENCE OF CHRIST ON THE EIGHTEEN CHRISTIAN CENTURIES SINCE THE NEW TESTAMENT WAS COMPLETED. I shall read the history of the world aright only as I read it through the mind of Christ.-Rev. A. J. BEHRENDS, D. D., in Homiletic Review, February, 1885. The centuries are all lineal children of one another.-CARLYLE. Geography and chronology are the eyes of history, -Professor H. B. ADAMS. "Henceforth my heart shall sigh no more For olden time and holier shore; God's love and blessing, then and there Remains to make the new time glad." -WHITTIER. Histories formerly recorded little save politics, the stories of kings and their battles. Recently men are writing the histories of peoples, with special reference to their domestic conditions in various ages. We seek to give each reader in these data the facts and forces and philosophy out of which he may construct a universal history, not of politics or of peoples, as such, but of moral progress; including politics and social conditions, so far as they are vitally related to liberty, charity, and reform. In this view we have noted chiefly those dates that are milestones in man's moral and spiritual advance, with only so much reference to kings as may show more clearly in history the hand of the King of kings. We have recorded inventions and discoveries in this newest testament of the life of Christ, because they have been made, as every world exposition so clearly exhibits, almost wholly in Christian nations— gunpowder and the mariner's compass being almost the only inventions effectively introduced to the world by the aged nations of pagan culture, and one of these an invention the world might well have spared. The first telegraphic message, "What hath God wrought!" is a fitting motto for the whole patent office. "Every invention that gives a man larger and easier mastery over nature, and liberates his spirit a little more from the necessity of continual drudgery, promotes the coming of the Kingdom." For individual or social study of the Christian centuries, so appropriate and interesting in these closing years of the latest and best of the series, we recommend: White's Eighteen Christian Centuries (Appleton); Thompson's Ninteen Christian Centuries (A. Craig & Co., Chicago); Joy's Rome and the Making of Modern Europe (Chautauqua Press); Ulhorn's Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism (Scribners), and especially, Brace's Gesta Christi (Armstrong). No more timely subject for a Christian reading circle or series of lectures could be found. For a ten months' course we suggest two centuries each for the first two months, three centuries each for the next three, one century each for the last five; and like divisions for ten lectures. For each century write out answers to following questions: What of the governments and laws and politics of this period? What of the social condition and liberties of the people? What of education? What religious gains and losses? What progress or decline in morals? What eminent men? What great battles? What discoveries or inventions? What great books? What is the chief characteristic of the century? Now that cyclopedias, dictionaries, and standard books are published so cheaply that almost every family or reading club can own a good reference library, or has a cheap or free public library at hand, there are few who cannot, if they will, give several hours per week to such a course of reading as is outlined here, or to one of those suggested in later pages. SECOND CENTURY.*-About the middle of this century Claudius Ptolemy promulgated his astronomy, in which our earth is the chief and central planet, a view which was held until, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton restored and improved the system Pythagoras had declared 500 B. C., which, so improved, is the * For Biblical data of earlier centuries see Biblical Sociology and Biblical Index in closing pages of this book. For a discussion of the Christian centuries, see pp. 33-41. system now taught. Galen's introductory work in anatomy belongs to this century. Pliny the Younger, in 102, wrote his well-known favorable letter about the early Christians, their simple worship on a “stated day," and their pure lives. In this century Rome reached its largest extent under Trajan, by the conquest of the Dacians or Parthians, and it is called "the happiest period of Roman history" in that the office of Emperor, having ceased with Nero to be hereditary, was now filled by men chosen because of superior ability by the Prætorian Guard or the legions. (Their virtues were those of public administration, not of personal character.) For the first time five emperors in succession died natural deaths. But these best emperors were made persecutors by their piety. They could not rise to the height of tolerating Christianity since it would not tolerate the sixty thousand idols in the Roman Pantheon. Against them it is estimated that it sent out sixty thousand manuscript copies of the Gospels during this century, in which the third, fourth, and fifth persecutions of Christians were instituted severally by Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, two of the "good emperors," and Septimius Severus. But the persecutions were unavailing. "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church." Philosophers as well as emperors attacked the new religion. Next to Christianity the most important moral force in this century was the Stoic philosophy, of which Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius were the most eminent exponents. All may read in the "Confessions" of the last named sentences on virtue as beautiful as ice crystals, and as cold. Stoicism taught restraint of passions in contrast to Epicurean indulgence, but it also antagonized Christianity, whose gentler, gladder virtues it could not appreciate. Christianity was also attacked by several advocates of Neo-Platonism, one of whom was Plutarch, the author of the well-known biographies. The skepticism of Lucian and Celsus also hurled against Christianity in vain nearly all the sophistries that Thomas Paine and Robert Ingersoll have since gathered up from the battle-field where they had rusted since those ancient defeats. Those early debates benefited the Church by making more exact its statements of doctrine. It was in this century that the New Testament books, all written in the previous century, were collected and separated from various spurious and uninspired writings. The great names of this century are Tertullian, Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, Ignatius, Polycarp, and Justin Martyr. The word “Catholic Church," meaning universal church, was first used in this century. THIRD CENTURY.-The Roman empire passed its zenith and began its decline in the closing quarter of the preceding century, whose glorious sun set in blood; and the third century was one in which "madmen |