The life of Jesus Christ, related with supreme dignity and surpassing beauty in the gospels, cannot be told too often. In this book of New Testament stories the life of Christ is set forth in simple language for young children. The four gospels tell mainly about the manhood of Jesus: how He journeyed from place to place with His little group of disciples, healing the sick, preaching the Word of God. Jesus was Himself the Word, for God is Love and the life of Christ was Love. I wish that we might have had one gospel more, written by Mary, to tell us of the clinging child, the eager boy, the earnest youth who was the light of the carpenter's home in Nazareth. The longing to know more of those early years has been so great that simple people, centuries ago, caught at floating legends that we no longer credit: how Jesus, at play with other children, molding clay into images of donkeys and cows and dogs, fashioned little sparrows that flew at his command; how when old Joseph, who, the story said, "was not very skillful at his carpenter's trade," would find he had made a door too wide or a shelf too long, Jesus would touch the timber and instantly door or shelf "became as Joseph would have it"; how one day Jesus' playfellows "spread their garments on the ground for Him to sit on, and having made a crown of flowers, put it upon His head and stood on His right and left as the guards of a king. And if anyone happened to pass by, they took him by force and said, 'Come hither, and worship the King, that you may have a prosperous journey.'"

From the Introduction