ur.--_Savannah, Ga._: J. M.
Cooper & Co.--_Macon, Ga._: J. M. Boardman.--_Augusta, Ga._: Thos.
Richards & Son.--_Richmond, Va._: Woodhouse & Parham.

1874.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849, by
JOHN LORD,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District
of Massachusetts.

PREFACE.

In preparing this History, I make no claim to original and profound
investigations; but the arrangement, the style, and the sentiments,
are my own. I have simply attempted to condense the great and varied
subjects which are presented, so as to furnish a connected narrative
of what is most vital in the history of the last three hundred years,
avoiding both minute details and elaborate disquisitions. It has been
my aim to write a book, which should be neither a chronological table
nor a philosophical treatise, but a work adapted to the wants of young
people in the various stages of education, and which, it is hoped,
will also prove interesting to those of maturer age; who have not the
leisure to read extensive works, and yet who wish to understand the
connection of great events since the Protestant Reformation. Those
characters, institutions, reforms, and agitations, which have had the
greatest influence in advancing society, only have been described, and
these not to the extent which will satisfy the learned or the curious.
Dates and names, battles and sieges, have not been disregarded; but
more attention has been given to those ideas and to those men by whose
influence and agency great changes have taken place. In a work so
limited, and yet so varied, marginal references to original
authorities have not been deemed necessary; but a list of standard and
accessible authors is furnished, at the close of each chapter, which
the young student, seeking more minute information, can easily
consult. A continuation of this History to the present time might seem
desirable; but it would be difficult to condense the complicated
events of the last thirty years into less than another volume. Instead
of an unsatisfactory compend, especially of subjects concerning which
there are great differences of opinion, and considerable warmth of
feeling, useful tables of important events are furnished in the
Appendix. I have only to add, that if I have succeeded in remedying,
in some measure, the defects of those dry compendiums, which are used
for want of living histories; if I have combined what is in