A HUNTING ADVENTURE. I had been travelling in the interior of Africa, in company with a Portuguese ivory trader, for several weeks, greatly enjoying the wild and exciting life we were compelled to lead. The exercise had steadied and braced my nerves, which before setting out were in a shattered condition from the effects of a severe and long attack of fever. Constant practice had also made me an expert... more...

FOLK LORE IN THE REIGN OF KING JAMES I. In turning over the pages of an old book of controversial divinity, I stumbled upon the following illustrations of folk lore; which, as well from their antiquity as from their intrinsic curiosity, seem worthy of a place in your columns. They make us acquainted with some of the usages of our ancestors, who lived in the remoter districts of England early in the... more...

Preface It is certain that up to a point in the evolution of Self most people find life quite exciting and thrilling. But when middle age arrives, often prematurely, they forget the thrill and excitements; they become obsessed by certain other lesser things that are deficient in any kind of Cosmic Vitality. The thrill goes out of life: a light dies down and flickers fitfully; existence goes on at a low... more...

Chapter I — A Great Transaction in Land The people of the young Republic of the United States were greatly astonished, in the summer of 1803, to learn that Napoleon Bonaparte, then First Consul of France, had sold to us the vast tract of land known as the country of Louisiana. The details of this purchase were arranged in Paris (on the part of the United States) by Robert R. Livingston and James... more...

Through the influence of early associations, I began my political life as a Whig, casting my first presidential ballot for General Harrison, in 1840. I knew next to nothing of our party politics; but in the matter of attending mass-meetings, singing Whig songs and drinking hard cider, I played a considerable part in the memorable campaign of that year. So far as ideas entered into my support of the... more...

CHAPTER I IN WHICH CERTAIN SUSPICIONS ARE EXCITED A grey, sunless morning on the Firth of Tay. Across a wide, sandy waste stretching away to the misty sea at Budden, four men were walking. Two wore uniform—one an alert, grey-haired general, sharp and brusque in manner, with many war ribbons across his tunic; the other a tall, thin-faced staff captain, who wore the tartan of the Gordon Highlanders.... more...

"Out of the depths, O Lord, out of the depths," begins the most beautiful of the services of our church, and it is out of the depths of my life that I must bring the incidents of this story. I was an unwanted child—unwanted as a girl at all events. Father Dan Donovan, our parish priest, told me all about it. I was born in October. It had been raining heavily all day long. The rain was beating... more...

A Question of Law THE slaughter-house is gone from the mouth of Bear Creek and so is the small jail (or 'calaboose') which once stood in its neighborhood. A citizen asked, 'Do you remember when Jimmy Finn, the town drunkard, was burned to death in the calaboose?' Observe, now, how history becomes defiled, through lapse of time and the help of the bad memories of men. Jimmy Finn was... more...

CHAPTER I THE CALL OF BOYHOOD The Christian apologetic for today depends less upon the arguments of speculative theology and the findings of biblical science than upon sociological considerations. The church is dealing with a pragmatic public which insists upon knowing what this or that institution accomplishes for the common good. The deep and growing interest in social science, the crying needs that... more...

My dear Maurice, It was in Normandy, you will remember, and in the heat of the year, when the birds were silent in the trees and the apples nearly ripe, with the sun above us already of a stronger kind, and a somnolence within and without, that it was determined among us (the jolly company!) that I should write upon Nothing, and upon all that is cognate to Nothing, a task not yet attempted since the... more...