While all those who pretend to the character of educated people would be ashamed to be ignorant of the history of Greece and Rome, the lives and achievements of the great men of these countries, and the works of their chief writers, it is to be feared that they content themselves Often with a very slight knowledge of the history of the Christian Church and of the illustrious ecclesiastics who have exercised so vast an in?uence upon the institutions and manners, the literature and philo sophy, as well as the religion of modern Europe.