Produced by David Wilson, David King, and the Online Distributed Proofreaders Team at https://www.pgdp.net. (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries.) A HANDFUL OF STARS TEXTS THAT HAVE MOVED GREAT MINDS BY F. W. BOREHAM THE ABINGDON PRESS NEW YORK CINCINNATI Copyright, 1922, by F. W. BOREHAM Printed in the United States of America First Edition Printed March, 1922 Reprinted June, 1922 CONTENTS I. William Penn's Text 9 II. Robinson Crusoe's Text 21 III. James Chalmers' Text 33 IV. Sydney Carton's Text 45 V. Ebenezer Erskine's Text 57 VI. Doctor Davidson's Text 69 VII. Henry Martyn's Text 78 VIII. Michael Trevanion's Text 90 IX. Hudson Taylor's Text 102 X. Rodney Steele's Text 113 XI. Thomas Huxley's Text 125 XII. Walter Petherick's Text 137 XIII. Doctor Blund's Text 149 XIV. Hedley Vicars' Text 160 XV. Silas Wright's Text 172 XVI. Michael Faraday's Text 182 XVII. Janet Dempster's Text 193 XVIII. Catherine Booth's Text 204 XIX. Uncle Tom's Text 216 XX. Andrew Bonar's Text 227 XXI. Francis d'Assisi's Text 237 XXII. Everybody's Text 250 BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION It is not good that a book should be alone: this is a companion volume to _A Bunch of Everlastings_. 'O God,' cried Caliban from the abyss, O God, if you wish for our love, Fling us _a handful of stars_! The Height evidently accepted the challenge of the Depth. Heaven hungered for the love of Earth, and so the stars were thrown. I have gathered up a few, and, like children with their beads and berries, have threaded them upon this string. It will be seen that they do not all belong to the same constellation. Most of them shed their luster over the stern realities of life: a few glittered in the firmament of fiction. It matters little. A great romance is a portrait of humanity, painted by a master-hand. When the novelist employs the majestic words of revelation to transfigure the lives of his characters, he does so because, in actual experience, he finds those selfsame words indelibly engraven upon the souls of men. And, after all, _Sydney Carton's Text_ is really _Charles Dickens' Text_; _Robinson Crusoe's Text_ is _Daniel Defoe's Text_; the text that stands embedded in the pathos of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ is the text that Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe had enthroned within her heart. Moreover, to whatever group these splendid orbs belong, their deathless radiance has been derived, in every case, from the perennial Fountain of all Beauty and Brightness. Frank W. Boreham. Armadale, Melbourne, Australia. I WILLIAM PENN'S TEXT I