THE BIBLE CLASS BOOK FOR SCHOOLS, TEACHERS, AND FAMILIES; WITH EXPLANATORY NOTES ON PLACES, CUSTOMS, ARTS, ANTIQUITIES, AND NATURAL HISTORY; AND POEMS ON THE SUBJECTS OF THE HISTORY. BY CHARLES BAKER; Headmaster of the Yorkshire Institution for the Deaf and Dumb; SECOND EDITION. With 100 Wood cuts, and Maps illustrative of the Periods. LONDON: WERTHEIM, MACINTOSH, AND HUNT, AND 23, HOLLES-STREET, CAVENDISH-SQUARE. 1860 101. d. 14, PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. The new features introduced in the present edition of the Bible Class Book, are 1. The addition of many NOTES AND EXPLANATIONS on the history geography, and antiquities of the East, obtained from the most recent sources of information, especially from the learned and attractive works of Layard and the Rawlinsons, on Assyria, Nineveh, and Babylon. 2. The addition of SEVEN FULLY-COLOURED MAPS, illustrative of the seven periods into which the history is divided. 3. The introduction of upwards of A HUNDRED WOODCUTS, which chiefly refer to the manners and customs of the East, and contribute to the better understanding of many of the allusions in the Sacred Volume. The main features of the first edition are retained, but both the Text and the Notes have been very carefully revised; in the Text there is a more rigid adherence to Scriptural Phraseology than in the former edition, while the Notes have been carefully remodelled and condensed, so as to render available the new matter which has been supplied by the researches of the most recent travellers and expositors. In preparing the NOTES AND EXPLANATIONS, the best authorities have been consulted, and the sources from which the longer ones are derived acknowledged; although none of these notes rest on the individual authority of the |