CHAPTER I GENERAL PRINCIPLES Commerce and modern civilization go hand in hand, and the history of the one is the history of the other; and whatever may be the basis of civilization, commerce has been the chief agent by which it has been spread throughout the world. Peoples who receive nothing from their fellow-men, and who give nothing in return, are usually but little above a savage state. Civilized... more...

INTRODUCTION These pictures of Colonial life and adventure make up a panorama which extends from Powhatan and John Smith, in the days of the Jamestown colony, to Pontiac’s attempt upon Detroit in the period which preceded the Revolution. Here one may read stories which are strange indeed, of King Philip’s War in New England, of a Dutch hero’s exploit on the shores of Long Island Sound,... more...

CHAPTER I. TREADING ON NEW GROUND. HAT last Sabbath of August was a lovely day; it was the first Sabbath that our girls had spent at home since the revelation of Chautauqua. It seemed lovely to them. "The world looks as though it was made over new in the night," Eurie had said, as she threw open her blinds, and drew in whiffs of the sweet, soft air. And the church, whither these girls had so... more...

Introduction "Tell me, ye muses, what hath former agesNow left succeeding times to play upon,And what remains unthought on by those sagesWhere a new muse may try her pinion?" So Complained Phineas Fletcher in his Purple Island as long ago as 1633. Three centuries have brought to the development of lyric passion no higher form than that of the sonnet cycle. The sonnet has been likened to an... more...

Before the dawn of history mankind was engaged in the study of dreaming. The wise man among the ancients was preëminently the interpreter of dreams. The ability to interpret successfully or plausibly was the quickest road to royal favor, as Joseph and Daniel found it to be; failure to give satisfaction in this respect led to banishment from court or death. When a scholar laboriously translates a... more...

Approach to the Silence Wrong thinking produces inharmony in our body, which in turn produces sickness. Our bodies sometimes are instantly re-harmonized while in the Silence. In the Silence our minds become passive, open, free and loving, at which time the Infinite Master of harmony touches the mental chords of our being and we are well. Just as the piano can be tuned, so can the mind. Man's body... more...

The request of the author that I should write a few words of preface to this collection of poems must be my excuse for obtruding myself upon the reader. Having frequently had the pleasure as editor of The Canadian Monthly, of introducing many of Mrs. MacLean's poems to lovers of verse in the Dominion it was thought not unfitting that I should act as foster father to the collection of them here... more...

INTRODUCTION It might seem that about Blaise Pascal, and about the two works on which his fame is founded, everything that there is to say had been said. The details of his life are as fully known as we can expect to know them; his mathematical and physical discoveries have been treated many times; his religious sentiment and his theological views have been discussed again and again; and his prose... more...

ADDRESS TO THE FLAG [After the Battle of Gettysburg.]Float in the winds of heaven, O tattered Flag!Emblem of hope to all the misruled world:Thy field of golden stars is rent and red—Dyed in the blood of brothers madly spilledBy brother-hands upon the mother-soil.O fatal Upas of the savage Nile,Transplanted hither—rooted—multiplied—Watered with bitter tears and sending forthThy venom-vapors till... more...

CHAPTER I SALLY CREIGHTON The frost outside was bitter, and the prairie which rolled back from Lander’s in long undulations to the far horizon, gleamed white beneath the moon, but there was warmth and brightness in Stukely’s wooden barn. The barn stood at one end of the little, desolate settlement, where the trail that came up from the railroad thirty miles away forked off into two wavy ribands... more...