_Who turns in time of affliction to the magazines or to those books of clever short stories which so amuse us when the mind is at peace and all goes well? No literary skill can bind up the broken-hearted; no beauty of phrase satisfy the soul that is torn by grief. No, when our house is in mourning we turn to the Bible first--that fount of wisdom and comfort which never fails him who comes to it with clean hands and a contrite heart. It is the medicine of life. And after it come the great books written by those who have walked through the Valley of the Shadow, yet have come out sweet and wholesome, with words of wisdom and counsel for the afflicted. One book through which beats the great heart of a man who suffered yet grew strong under the lash of fate is worth more than a thousand books that teach no real lesson of life, that are as broken cisterns holding no water, when the soul is athirst and cries out for refreshment._ _This personal, heart-to-heart talk with you, my patient readers of many years, is the first in which I have indulged since the great fire swept away all my precious books--the hoarded treasures of forty years. Against my will it has been forced from me, for I am like a sorely wounded animal and would fain nurse my pain alone. It is written in the first bitterness of a crushing sorrow; but it is also written in the spirit of hope and confidence--the spirit which I trust will strengthen me to spend time and effort in helping to make life easier for some poor boys in memory of the one dearest boy who has gone before me into that "undiscovered country," where I hope some day to meet him, with the old bright smile on his face and the old firm grip of the hand that always meant love and tenderness and steadfast loyalty._ _Among men of New England strain like myself it is easy to labor long hours, to endure nervous strain, to sacrifice comfort and ease for the sake of their dear ones; but men of Puritan strain, with natures as hard as the flinty granite of their hillsides, cannot tell their loved ones how dear they are to them, until Death lays his grim hand upon the shoulder of the beloved one and closes his ears forever to the words of passionate love that now come pouring in a flood from our trembling lips._ _San Francisco, October 9, 1910._ COMFORT FOUND IN GOOD OLD BOOKS THE GREATEST BOOK IN THE WORLD HOW TO SECURE THE BEST THAT IS IN THE BIBLE--MUCH COMFORT IN SORROW AND STIMULUS TO GOOD LIFE MAY BE FOUND IN ITS STUDY.