PEARLS FROM MANY SEAS.

A GALAXY OF THOUGHT FROM FOUR HUNDRED

WRITERS OF WIDE REPUTE.

Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1898 by the

RHODES & MCCLURE PUBLISHING COMPANY, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, Washington, D. C.

All Rights Reserved.

PLYMOUTH PRINTING & BINDING CO.

CHICAGO.

INTRODUCTION.

Upon the windows of a publishing house in one of our great American cities the passer-by may read the words “Books are the only things that live for ever.” That is a noble sentiment, though but a partial truth. Books do live for ever—that is, some books. And so do folks —that is, some folks. I am not now thinking of other worlds, but of this. There is an earthly immortality. George Eliot writes of

" the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence,
In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,
And with their mild persistence urge man's search
To vaster issues."

Thought is immortal. It can no more be buried than it can be burned or hanged. What better fame, then, what more enduring monument, can a man have than that he has whose thoughts live after him, whose words are lifted up like banners to call humanity to worthier living ? There is also a reflected immortality for the man who makes it his ministry on earth to search out the best thoughts of others and give them to the race.

And so, this book is a beautiful memorial of him in whose mind it was conceived and by whose labor it was prepared. The Reverend James B. McClure was a Presbyterian minister. Born in Vincennes, Ind., in 1832, educated at Hanover College and McCormick Theological Seminary, a pastor in Fulton, Ill., and later in Denver,