The grandest school of the ages is the fireside. Here lessons of the utmost importance are taught and learned, and here many of the greatest and most influential men have been fitted for the duties and responsibilities of life. Books are great instructors in this grand university, and he who prepares a healthful volume for reading at the fireside, aids, perhaps more than he will ever know, in the great and necessary work of educating the masses of mankind. There are nations whose languages contain no word to express what we call "home." Beneath their sunny skies, the charms and comforts of an outdoor life leave them but a faint conception of the quiet and solid comfort embraced in a home which has the fireside as its center, and in which the garnered fruits of summer's toil gladden the dark and stormy hours, and make bright those days which have little of external brightness to commend them. We send forth these FIRESIDE READINGS with the hope and trust that they may add fresh brightness to many happy homes. They do not go upon an untraveled way. In the columns of THE CHRISTIAN, from which this volume has been extracted, they have already gone to many thousand firesides, and have been read by myriads of readers, some of whom, we are sure, will be glad to possess them in a more permanent form. They will find here gems from many mines, and precious things gathered from far and near. We commit this book to the world with the hope that it may instruct the ignorant, guide the erring, and strengthen some hearts to walk on in the paths of truth and righteousness. Some day we hope to greet our readers in a better land, where all the trials and discomforts of our earthly homes shall have passed away, and nothing shall remain but the pure, the good, and the true, in the house not made with hands, the home of the redeemed of the Lord. SCRIPTURAL TRACT REPOSITORY, Office of THE CHRISTIAN, Boston, Mass., U. S. A, August, 1881. THE AUTHOR. |