AUTHOR’S PROLOGUE

In the Gospels of the only Divine Friend this world has ever had or ever will have, we read of a Voice, a ‘Voice in the Wilderness.’  There have been thousands of such Voices;—­most of them ineffectual.  All through the world’s history their echoes form a part of the universal record, and from the very beginning of time they have sounded forth their warnings or entreaties in vain.  The Wilderness has never cared to hear them.  The Wilderness does not care to hear them now.

Why, then, do I add an undesired note to the chorus of rejected appeal?  How dare I lift up my voice in the Wilderness, when other voices, far stronger and sweeter, are drowned in the laughter of fools and the mockery of the profane?  Truly, I do not know.  But I am sure that I am not moved by egotism or arrogance.  It is simply out of love and pity for suffering human kind that I venture to become another Voice discarded—­a voice which, if heard at all, may only serve to awaken the cheap scorn and derision of the clowns of the piece.

Yet, should this be so, I would not have it otherwise, I have never at any time striven to be one with the world, or to suit my speech pliantly to the conventional humour of the moment.  I am often attacked, yet am not hurt; I am equally often praised, and am not elated.  I have no time to attend to the expression of opinions, which, whether good or bad, are to me indifferent.  And whatever pain I have felt or feel, in experiencing human malice, has been, and is, in the fact that human malice should exist at all,—­not for its attempted wrong towards myself.  For I, personally speaking, have not a moment to waste among the mere shadows of life which are not Life itself.  I follow the glory,—­not the gloom.

So whether you, who wander in darkness of your own making, care to come towards the little light which leads me onward, or whether you prefer to turn away from me altogether into your self-created darker depths, is not my concern.  I cannot force you to bear me company.  God Himself cannot do that, for it is His Will and Law that each human soul shall shape its own eternal future.  No one mortal can make the happiness or salvation of another.  I, like yourselves, am in the ’Wilderness,’—­but I know that there are ways of making it blossom like the rose!  Yet,—­were all my heart and all my love outpoured upon you, I could not teach you the Divine transfiguring charm,—­unless you, equally with all your hearts and all your love, resolutely and irrevocably willed to learn.

Nevertheless, despite your possible indifference,—­your often sheer inertia—­I cannot pass you by, having peace and comfort for myself without at least offering to share that peace and comfort with you.  Many of you are very sad,—­and I would rather you were happy.  Your ways of living are trivial and unsatisfactory—­your so-called ‘pleasant’ vices lead you into unforeseen painful perplexities—­your