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A Troubled Heart and How It Was Comforted at Last
A Troubled Heart and How It Was Comforted at Last Author:Charles Warren Stoddard Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: When I was about ten years of age, we children were taken by our mother into a far country, whither our father had preceded us. Our life there was exciting ... more »and romantic; for we were upon the frontier, in a new land, among gold-seekers and adventurers; and the children, who were then few in number, were made much of. Two years later it was my lot, and my choice also, to be sent upon a long sea-voyage, as companion to an older brother, who was an invalid, in search of health. For three months we were tossed upon the waves without setting foot on shore. Our ship was a fine one, certainly ; but the captain's wife was the only woman on board, and there was but one other passenger beside my brother and myself. I had not yet acquired a taste for reading ; I soon grew weary of playing with the toy-ships the sailors made for me ; land we saw only for a few days—not more than five out of the ninety odd,—and it was seldom that our eyes were gladdened by the glimmer of a distant sail. It was a sad experience for me ; and my brother, whose health was little benefited, was scarcely able to keep me from yielding to despair. Upon leaving home, my mother's last injunction was to read daily some chapters of my Bible, and this I never failed to do. What solemn hours were mine, alone in my cramped state-room, poring over that wonderful volume, and every day becoming more and more perplexed with its histories and mysteries ! I did not then know that the wisest heads have disputed over it; that while it is the fountain of all love, it has likewise watered the seeds of all dissension. It is reasonable to suppose that the most vigorousexercise of my private judgment was not likely to aid me in the interpretation of even the simplest text. My mental horizon seemed to grow more and more limited as ...« less