LETTER OF MARTIN LUTHER TO POPE LEO X. Among those monstrous evils of this age with which I have now for three years been waging war, I am sometimes compelled to look to you and to call you to mind, most blessed father Leo. In truth, since you alone are everywhere considered as being the cause of my engaging in war, I cannot at any time fail to remember you; and although I have been compelled by the... more...

INTRODUCTION This volume was originally written in Dutch by John Esquemeling, and first published in Amsterdam in 1678 under the title of De Americaeneche Zee Roovers. It immediately became very popular and this first hand history of the Buccaneers of America was soon translated into the principal European languages. The first English edition was printed in 1684. Of the author, John Esquemeling, very... more...

OPINIONS OF AUTHORS Libraries are as the shrines where all the relics of the ancient saints, full of true virtue, and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed.—Bacon, Advancement of Learning. We visit at the shrine, drink in some measure of the inspiration, and cannot easily breathe in other air less pure, accustomed to immortal fruits.—Hazlitt's Plain Speaker. What a... more...

Groundwork When you cut a melon, your friends will come with eager mouths and sit under your shade tree and help you eat it. Few of these friends would respond to your call for help when you were working in the hot sun raising that melon. Many people accept the dividends and benefits of friendship but give you a cold shoulder when called upon for assessments of friendship. The world is full of young... more...

I - EXPERIMENTS There are two separate processes going on among the civilized nations at the present time. One is an assault by socialism against the individualism which underlies the social system of western civilization. The other is an assault against existing institutions upon the ground that they do not adequately protect and develop the existing social order. It is of this latter process in our... more...

I THE SUBJECT In these days immediately following the Great War it is well upon beginning anything--even a modest biographical sketch--to consider a few elementals and distinguish them from the changing unessentials, to keep a sound basis of sense and not be led into hysteria, to look carefully again at the beams of our house and not be deceived into thinking that the plaster and the wall paper are the... more...

I trust that you will pardon me for being here. I do not wish to force my thoughts upon you, but I feel forced myself. Little as I know of Captain Brown, I would fain do my part to correct the tone and the statements of the newspapers, and of my countrymen generally, respecting his character and actions. It costs us nothing to be just. We can at least express our sympathy with, and admiration of, him... more...

THE PHYSIOLOGY OF THE LONDON MEDICAL STUDENT. 11.—HOW MR. MUFF CONCLUDES HIS EVENING. Essential as sulphuric acid is to the ignition of the platinum in an hydropneumatic lamp; so is half-and-half to the proper illumination of a Medical Student’s faculties. The Royal College of Surgeons may thunder and the lecturers may threaten, but all to no effect; for, like the slippers in the Eastern story,... more...

“As the Spirits of Darkness be stronger in the dark, so Good Spirits which be Angels of Light are augmented not only by the Divine light of the Sun, but also by our common VVood Fire: and as the Celestial Fire drives away dark spirits, so also this our Fire of VVood doth the same.” Cor. Agrippa, Occult Philosophy, Book I. chap. v. “Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, Arrives the snow; and,... more...

INTRODUCTION I am sitting in the doorway of a house of the Stone Age—neolithic, paleolithic, troglodytic man—with a roofless city of the dead lying in the valley below and the eagles circling with lonely cries along the yawning caverns of the cliff face above. My feet rest on the topmost step of a stone stairway worn hip-deep in the rocks of eternity by the moccasined tread of foot-prints that run... more...