Foreword

HENRY DRUMMOND whose nature was at once so beautiful and so princely, and whose work here, though brief, was so unique and so vital never perhaps gave utterance to a greater truth than when he said, “And half the world is on the wrong scent in the pursuit of happiness.”

He might well have uttered the same truth in regard to those seeking for power, in regard to those seeking for greatness, or in regard to those seeking even for the true life itself, the true life with all its attendant riches and glories and powers in distinction from the poor excuses of lives that the great majority of people are living today, not only in America and in England, but the world over.

If the statement is true, and true it unquestionably is, what, let us ask, is the reason? When we come to search closely, we shall find that ignorance is at the root of the entire matter — ignorance of the laws of the real life. Moreover, no one will willingly continue to live a life of the little, dwarfed, and stunted type, if they once vitally realize the facts of the larger, fuller, and richer life that awaits them; and if, in addition to this, they understand clearly the laws and forces governing it, so as to be able wisely and fully to use them.

Inspired teachers, seers, and sages, as well as most able writers, have at various times and in many ways pointed out the laws and forces underlying the real, and hence more abundant life; but so many times it has been through the medium-ship of purely abstract teachings. The result has been that the larger portion of the people, unable clearly to see them from the same standpoint with those who would teach them, have many times entirely failed vitally to grasp them. And so failing, they have been unable to take them and infuse them into everyday life, so as to mould it in all its details in accordance with what they would have it, as every individual life can and should be moulded.

It is the author’s purpose in the pages that follow to present these laws and forces in a manner so simple and so concrete, that no one can fail vitally to grasp them. It is, moreover his aim to present them in such a manner that those who do thus vitally grasp them will be impelled by such an irresistible desire so to use them that they will immediately enter upon the more abundant life that will inevitably follow.

R.W.T BOSTON, MASS. USA (1897)