The question comes closer still: How may the controversy in my own heart, the strife between inflowing selfishness and outgoing love, be settled in the victory of good, and settled forever? What does the Bible say? What has God to teach us upon this question, eternally important to every soul? Questions like these meet us from every side. They rise insistent up from the depths of our own heart. They demand definite answer. Surely the God who created in us the longing for the better, the desire for the truth, will not withhold from us the answer to all needed knowledge; for “the Lord Jehovah will do nothing, except He reveal His secret unto His servants the prophets.” It is the aim of this book, reader, to help the troubled soul to a right solution of all these problems. It is written by one who has tasted and found that God is good, and who has learned in communion with God and the study of His word that the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him, and that He will show them His covenant. That we may better understand the principles of the all-important controversy, in which the life of a universe is involved, the author has set it before us in great, concrete object-lessons of the last twenty centuries. The book opens with the sad closing scenes of Jerusalem’s history, the city of God’s chosen, after her rejection of the Man of Calvary, who came to save. Thence onward along the great highway of the nations, it points us to the persecutions of God’s children in the first centuries; the great apostasy which followed in His church; the world-awakening of the Reformation, in which some of the great principles of the controversy are clearly manifest; the awful lesson of the rejection of right principles by France; the revival and exaltation of the Scriptures, and their beneficent, life-saving influence; the religious awakening of the last days; the unsealing of the radiant fountain of God’s word, with its wonderful revelations of light and knowledge to meet the baleful upspringing of every delusion of darkness. The present impending conflict, with the vital principles involved, in which no one can be neutral, are simply, lucidly, strongly set forth. Last of all, we are told of the eternal and glorious victory of good over evil, right over wrong, light over darkness, joy over sorrow, hope over despair, glory over shame, life over death, and everlasting, long-suffering love over vindictive hate. Former editions of this book have brought many souls to the True Shepherd; it is the prayer of the publishers that this edition may be even more fruitful of eternal good. THE PUBLISHERS. INTRODUCTION. [Illustration: Introduction]