Introduction The articles that are printed in this book made what was in my opinion the most important, the most constructive, series on a single subject that Good Housekeeping has published in the quarter century and more that I was its editor. And they might so easily never have been written—just a little item in a newspaper missed, or its significance overlooked, and these sincere and helpful... more...

GOD OUR SHEPHERD The twenty-third Psalm seems to break in two at the end of the fourth verse. The first four verses clearly reflect a pastoral scene; the fifth appears to carry us off, without warning, to very different associations. This, however, is only in appearance. The last two verses are as pastoral as the first four. If these show us the shepherd with his sheep upon the pasture, those follow... more...

CHAPTER I "It was to a noise like thunder, and close clasped in a soldier's embrace, that Catherine I. made her first appearance in Russian history." History, indeed, contains few chapters more strange, more seemingly impossible, than this which tells the story of the maid-of-all-work—the red-armed, illiterate peasant-girl who, without any dower of beauty or charm, won the idolatry of an... more...

INTRODUCTORY. For many years these chapters had no special interest to me; but I have never ceased to be thankful that I was early led to read the Word of God in regular course: it was through this habit that these chapters first became specially precious to me. I was travelling on a missionary tour in the province of Cheh-kiang, and had to pass the night in a very wicked town. All the inns were... more...

INTRODUCTION The Life of a Day. ' am at my farm; and, since my last misfortunes, have not been in Florence twenty days. I spent September in snaring thrushes; but at the end of the month, even this rather tiresome sport failed me. I rise with the sun, and go into a wood of mine that is being cut, where I remain two hours inspecting the work of the previous day and conversing with the woodcutters,... more...

SELF DEVELOPMENT AND THE WAY TO POWER It is the natural right of every human being to be happy—to escape all the miseries of life. Happiness is the normal condition, as natural as the landscapes and the seasons. It is unnatural to suffer and it is only because of our ignorance that we do suffer. Happiness is the product of wisdom. To attain perfect wisdom, to comprehend fully the purpose of life, to... more...

BOOK XXVII. Cneius Fulvius, proconsul, defeated by Hannibal and slain; the consul, Claudius Marcellus, engages him with better success. Hannibal, raising his camp, retires; Marcellus pursues, and forces him to an engagement. They fight twice; in the first battle, Hannibal gains the advantage; in the second, Marcellus. Tarentum betrayed to Fabius Maximus, the consul. Scipio engages with Hasdrubal, the... more...

THE KING’S HERALD.“On Jordan’s banks the Baptist’s cryAnnounces that the Lord is nigh;Awake and hearken, for he bringsGlad tidings of the King....” When the Saviour of the world was about to enter upon His public ministry, the Jewish nation was startled with the cry, “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand” (S. Matt. iii. 2). Such was God’s call to His people of old time, to prepare... more...

CHAPTER I SHEPHERDS ON THE BORDER OF THE DESERT Ancient Arabia is the home of that branch of the white race known as the Semitic. Here on the fertile fringes of well-watered land surrounding the great central desert lived the Phœnicians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and the Canaanites who, before the Hebrews, inhabited Palestine. So little intermixing of races has there been that the Arabs of... more...

THEIR MORAL AND ECONOMIC SIGNIFICANCE No more severe reflection could be passed upon the moral and political capacity of the human species than this: Five thousand years after the invention of writing, three thousand after the invention of money, and (nearly) five hundred since the invention of printing, governments all over the world are employing the third invention for the purpose of debasing the... more...