PREFACE.
To all, as they pass through the world, come “light
and shadow.”
Though the sun may be in the heavens, clouds often
intervene, and
cast deep shadows about our footsteps. But, it
is a truth which we
cannot too deeply lay to heart, that, in our life,
as in nature, the
exhalations which form the obscuring cloud arise from
below. They
are not born in the pure heavens, but spring out of
the earth
beneath. If there was nothing evil in the mind,
there would be no
cloud in the sky of our being,—all would
be “eternal sunshine.”
If, therefore, in this book the lights and shadows
are blessed; if,
in a word, the clouds often hang heavy and remain
long in the sky,
the fault is in those whose histories we have written.
But the sky
does not always remain dark. As the heart becomes
filled with better
purposes through the trials and pains of adversity,
or comes out
purer from the furnace of affliction, the clouds disperse,
and the
blessed sunlight comes again. Lay this up for
your consolation, all
ye who are in trouble and affliction, and look hopefully
in the
future. It will not always remain dark as in
the present time.
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