A General History of the World Briefly Sketched Upon Scriptural Principles
for the Sunday School Union of the Methodist Episcopal Church
Rev. Christian Gottlob Barth, author
Rev. Robert Francis Walker, translator

New York: Lane and Tippett, 1847
Joseph Longking, Printer

Carefully revised fourth edition by Daniel Parish Kidder, a very popular book by the author of many popular books, including Bible Stories for the Young, also known as Barth's Bible Stories.

This blogpost offering by Mary Katherine May of QualityMusicandBooks.com

Purpose
The Editor's Preface to the fourth edition states two purposes for A General History of the World Briefly Sketched Upon Scriptural Principles. 1 For the beginner: A useful introduction to more detailed and voluminous works. 2 Summary of historical events to be used as a review of studies.

Barth's Basis for Understanding History
The infallible key of history is the recognition of the Lord Jesus Christ as its central point.

Barth's Christian History Perspective
The book spans world history from Creation to the year first published and is told from a western, non-Roman Catholic theological base. That is, the Roman Catholic Church does not represent a true Christian faith, and the loss of recognition of Constantinople (the Eastern Church) as a Holy See was God's judgement upon it because of its corruption and ungodly traditions, specifically the use of icons.

Examples of Thought
Creation: We would not know how creation began and proceeded except that God himself condescended to reveal it.

The Fall: Invisible enemy of mankind looked with envy upon their [Adam and Even] their felicity and contrived a plot to effect their ruin...took possession of the serpent...

World history is a Christian history: The human race is one large family...details respecting particular nations, so far as they have borne an essential or material part in the concerns of the family at large..we cannot ensure a traveler of having taken the right road until we know whither he is destined...great end of all things, the glory of God.  Course of each nation: each a single tributary rivulet that is added to the swelling river and the mighty ocean.  Each period of history: a stage in the transition to some further development.

But as the current of events is under the influence of man's Lord and Ruler, who prescribes the courses of nations and of individuals so that all shall concur to the fulfillment of his will, the ultimate result can be learned only by communications from himself.  Divine instruction, therefore, is the requisite to all proper understanding of human history. ...too often, Bible only consulted in the absence of other documents.

Tree of Life: Invisible pledge of immortality. ...had permission to eat of this tree been continued to them, it would have implied a permission of their living forever in irremediable corruption and hopeless ruin.

Train of Temporal Evils
Earth altered, ground now cursed. 
Obtain bread by sweat of brow instead of earth spontaneously yielding its fruits.

Plan of Restoration: Promise of Messiah seen through enmity, perpetual conflict between good and evil. Temptations, sufferings and persecutions are the bruising on the heel of the woman's promised seed. Every triumph of faith, victory over sin is a treading upon the serpent's head.

Sin: Adam's descendants in general were begotten in his own image, after his own likeness...that is, they were by nature spiritually dead in Adam.

The Curse: The corruption of sin was in essence mitigated by God during the Second Period (Deluge to time of Nebuchadnezzar) by shortening the span of life by various means. The curse relates to a temporal rather than a spiritual condition.

Abraham: One of the remaining few who retained the knowledge of the true God.

Kingdom of God
Exterior form: Laws, ordinances, own peculiar guardianship into a firm barrier against the general inundation of idolatrous rites and infidel apostasy...

Internal substance: Consists of all those who far from being satisfied with their own outward acknowledgment of the truth admit it also to the government of their affections and lives, walk by lively faith in God, in his promises and make it their chief business to diffuse the light of the Gospel in the world.  These people are pillars of the earth...sustainers of its inhabitants...for their sakes, and in answer to their prayers and intercessions, does God still bear with an apostate world. They are the lively, healthful, and ever renewing flower of his dominion here on earth...

Kingdom of God in the New Testament is named by the very name of Christ: it is called Christ's Kingdom...Christ is the center of the Kingdom of God, and hence all of mankind.

All kingdoms of the world are obliged to do God service, and are made use of by him as his instruments.

Jesus Christ in History
As the conduct and condition of every nation cannot but have a nearer or more distant relation to this kingdom of God, so all things bear a collective reference to Christ as their center.

As all the vital members of the kingdom of God, before the birth of Christ, testified their faith principally by trusting in the word of promise concerning the Messiah that was to come, so all the spiritual members of the same kingdom, under the New Testament, possess true and inward life in exact proportion as Christ llives within them, and is formed within them the "hope of glory."

Links
Christian Gottlob Barth
Robert Francis Walker
Google links to Daniel Parish Kidder