TO THE READER.
Said the author of the following pages, in the previous editions of this work: —
"What a world is this we live in! What storms and tempests, tornadoes and bitter, wintry blasts sweep across the souls of us poor sons and daughters of the Infinite! Only threescore years and ten, our allotted span of life, and yet how many ages of cruel suffering and heart-racking agony are crowded within the leaves of its brief volume! What does it all mean? Are we foredoomed to drink the bitter cup in consequence of some fearful lege majeste in foregone ages? Or, are all these bitternesses we endure but the chastening rod of Him who wields the destinies of the all that is? Ah, how often the heart-reft children of sorrow — the sad-hearted pilgrims of love — ask themselves and the unlistening winds these questions! Is there no answer? Are all of us to cry in vain for a response to these vital askings? I think not; for it seems to me that much of what we suffer — in and from the heart, I mean — is the result of blindness, — almost wilful blindness to many things, laws, principles, easily understood, and which, if obeyed, bring happiness in their train. In this book I have endeavored to so clear up the path, that there need be no more mistakes in matters of the heart and affections, and have said many things of vital consequence to all who love, are loved, would love, be loved, and who are unloved, and I believe that I have so clearly revealed the laws of love, that in the future there shall be more joy and happiness than sorrow and regret, both within and without the pale of marriage."
