Bibles for Children

BIBLES FOR CHILDREN: Various attempts have been made to present the Bible in the form of a "child's book." The selection of parts best adapted to immature minds and the omission of the unsuitable, with simplification of language, are the chief aims in such attempts. Illustrations, coarse print, and other typographical devices are naturally used freely. Such books spring from the conviction that the Bible contains spiritual truth for all and is the greatest instrument for awakening religious feeling and quickening moral perception, but that its usefulness for these ends is necessarily conditioned upon the form of presentation and that the latter may well be varied for different classes of readers. The following list mentions some noteworthy books of this sort in English, but makes no claim to completeness.

An Abridgement of the Holy Scriptures. By the Rev. Mr. Sellon, late Minister of St. James's, Clerkenwell, published in 1781 and many later eds., at Hartford by Hale and Hosmer, 1813.

The Bible for Children. Arranged from the King James Version. With a Preface by the Rev. Francis Brown, D.D., and an Introduction by the Right Rev. Henry C. Potter, D.D. [compiled by Mrs. Joseph B. Gilder], New York [1902].

The Bible Story Re-told for Young People; the Old Testament Story by W. H. Bennett; the New Testament Story by W. F. Adeney, London, 1897.

The Bible for Young People, translated from the Dutch of H. Oort and I. Hooykas by P. H. Wicksteed, 6 vols., London, 1873-79; 2d ed., 1882.

The Children's Bible, or an History of the Holy Scriptures to which is added a new manual of devotions for children; by a divine of the Church of England, London, 1759.

The Child's Bible. With plates. By a Lady of Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Henry F. Anners, 1834.

A Compendium of the Religious Doctrines, Religious and Moral Precepts, Historical and Descriptive Beauties of the Bible; with a Separate Moral Selection from the Apocrypha; being a Transcript of the received Text: Intended for the use of Families, but more particularly as a Reading Book for Schools. By Rodolphus Dickinson, Esq., . . . Greenfield, Mass., Horace Graves, Printer, 1814.

A curious Hieroglyphick Bible, or Select Passages in the Old and New Testaments, represented with emblematical figures, for the amusement of youth; designed chiefly to familiarize tender age, in a pleasing and diverting manner, with early ideas of the Holy Scriptures�a very popular work which appeared in many editions (12th ed., London, 1792; Worcester, Mass., Isaiah Thomas, 1788; Dublin, 1789; etc.). It is a child's book, containing short passages of Scripture in which some of the words are represented by small cuts.

The Holy Bible abridged: or the History of the Old and New Testament. Illustrated with Notes, and adorned with cuts. For the Use of Children. To which is added, A Compleat Abstract of the Old and New Testament, with the Apocrypha, in Easy Verse, New York, Hodge, Allen, and Campbell, 1790.

The School and Children's Bible; prepared under the superintendence of the Rev. William Ropers, . . . London, 1873. It presents the Bible in a shortened form, "adapted for the use of children, and rearranges the matter."

The Bible for Young People, New York, 1902, n. e., 1906.

Scripture Lessons for schools on the British system of mutual instruction. Adopted in Russia by order of the Emperor Alexander I., London, 1820. According to the preface, these selections were originally made in Russian at St. Petersburg in 1818-19, and adopted in Russian schools at the instance of Prince Alexander Galitzin, minister of instruction. The Committee of the British and Foreign School Society then determined to issue them in the chief languages of Europe. The extracts are divided into: (1) Historical Lessons from the Old Testament; (2) Lessons on Duty toward God and Man; (3) Lessons from the Evangelists and the Acts.