THE MEANING OF HISTORY.--A thoughtful student can hardly fail to propose to himself the question, "What is the meaning of history? Why is this long drama with all that is noble and joyous in it, and with its abysses of sin and misery, enacted at all?" It is only a partial answer that one can hope to give to this grave inquiry, for the designs of Providence can not be fully fathomed. But, among the ends in view, the moral training of mankind stands forth with a marked prominence. The deliverance of the race from moral evil and error, and the building-up of a purified society, enriched with all the good that belongs to the ideal of humanity, and exalted by fellowship with God, is not only an end worthy in itself, but it is the end towards which the onward movement of history is seen to be directed. Hence, a central place in the course of history belongs to the life and work of Jesus Christ. No more satisfactory solution of this problem of the significance of history has ever been offered than that brought forward by the Apostle Paul in Acts xvii. 27, where he says that the nations of men were assigned to their places on the earth, and their duration as well as boundaries determined, "that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him." WORKS ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY.-(Professor C. K. ADAMS'S _Manual of Historical Literature_ (1882) is an excellent guide in historical reading. Briefer lists of works in _Methods of Teaching and Studying History_, edited by G. Stanley Hall.) _Books on the Philosophy of History_: R. FLINT, _The Philosophy of History_, vol. i.,--Writers on the subject in France and Germany. Vol. ii. will treat of England and Italy. The work is a critical review of the literature on the subject. Schlegel, _The Philosophy of History_; Shedd's _Lectures on the Philosophy of History_; Bunsen's _God in History_ (3 vols., 1870); LOTZE, _Mikrokosmus_, vol. iii, book vii.; Montesquieu's _Spirit of the Laws_; Buckle, _History of Civilization in England_ (2 vols.). This work is based on the denial of free-will, and the doctrine that physical influences,--climate, soil, food, etc.,--are the main causes of intellectual progress. Draper's _History of the Intellectual Development of Europe_(2 vols., 2d edition, 1876) is in the same vein. Opposed to this philosophy are GOLDWIN SMITH'S _Lectures on the Study of History_; C. Kingsley, in his _Miscellanies, The Limits of Exact Science as applied to History_; Froude, in _Short Studies_, vol. i., _The Science of History_; Lotze, as above; also, Flint, and Droysen, _Grundriss der Historik_. Hegel's _Philosophy of History_ has profound observations, but connected with an _a priori_ theory.