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A guide to Christ. Or, The way of directing souls that are under the work of conversion. Compiled for the help of young ministers: and may be serviceable to private Christians, who are enquiring the way to Zion. By Solomon Stoddard, A.M. and Pastor of the church in Northampton. With an epistle prefixed, by the Reverend Dr. Increase Mather. 1714.. Digitized from IA40310316-32 . Previous issue: bim_eighteenth-century_gospel-ministers-christ_pike-james_1751 . Next issue: bim_eighteenth-century_the-great-christian-doct_edwards-jonathan_1758 .

1Morgesons

By Elizabeth Stoddard

Stoddard’s novel traces the education and development of a young female in American middle-class society. The protagonist, Cassandra Morgeson, is educated by a series of journeys she makes throughout her youth and early adulthood. Each new setting represents a different stage in her intellectual development.<br /> Cassandra is born in Surrey, a small New England town. Surrey is quiet and isolated, granting a young woman little intellectual stimulation. Cassandra escapes the boredom of domestic life through stories of adventure and exploration. Surrey instills in Cassandra a restlessness that drives her quest for knowledge and experience.<br /> (Introduction by Wikipedia)

This is the story of the lepers of Molokai and of the Roman Catholic missionary, Father Damien, who ministered to those who languished in that desolate place, waiting for death to release them from a most intense form of physical and mental suffering. Fr. Damien, born Jozef De Veuster, was a Roman Catholic priest from Belgium and member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, a missionary religious order. He won recognition for his ministry to people with leprosy (Hansen's disease), who had been placed under a government-sanctioned medical quarantine on the remote island of Molokai in the Kingdom of Hawaii. He, himself, contracted and died of this dreaded disease after caring for the physical, spiritual, and emotional needs of the people in the colony for sixteen years. (Adapted from Wikipedia)

This is the inspiring story of Saint Anthony of Padua (1195-1231). The son of a wealthy Portuguese family, he was initially ordained a priest of the Canons Regular of Saint Augustine. In 1221, he took up the habit of a poor Franciscan friar and devoted his life to fervently preaching the Word of God. His extensive knowledge of Sacred Scripture and keen insights into its profound spiritual meaning astonished his hearers. To confirm the efficacy of his words, God gave him the gifts of prophecy and of performing miracles, the most memorable of which he worked in Padua in northern Italy, where he resided for many years. Anthony was declared a Doctor of the Church and is the beloved Patron Saint of the Poor.

4Before the Mirror

By Elizabeth Stoddard

Elizabeth Drew Stoddard, née Barstow was a United States poet and novelist. She is most widely known today as the author of The Morgesons (1862), her first of three novels. Her other two novels are Two Men (1865) and Temple House (1867). Stoddard was also a prolific writer of short stories, children's tales, poems, essays, travel writing, and journalism pieces. (Summary from Wikipedia)

These outstanding poems by the renowned author Elizabeth Stoddard speak of the poet's hunger for the freedom of an idyllic future - a hunger enhanced by a contagious idealism characteristic of Stoddard's exceptional poetic dexterity. <br><br> These are poems that elevate the listener to levels only dreamed of by the poet herself - to visions of freedom based on the essential and universal craving of a soul burdened, indeed caught within a mundane world of the commonplace. <br><br> Abundant in these works is the poet's empathy with the plight of mankind whom she envisions as trapped on a treadmill, vainly attempting to escape the traditional but remaining caught and destined - albeit while on the very threshold of an existence shaped by the reality of the struggle - to re-emerge into a world which is in a profusion of anguishing ways dishearteningly similar to that of before. <br><br> Elizabeth Stoddard's relentless pursuit in verse of the happiness that accompanies an idealized life free from social restraints and limitations has produced this collection of some of the finest poetical works of the late nineteenth century. - Summary by Bruce Kachuk

6In The Footprints Of The Padres

By Charles Warren Stoddard

The American Charles Warren Stoddard (1843–1909) wrote travel books quite popular in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This third enlarged edition (1912) of his book more about California in general, in historia, and in memoria rather than her missions contains essays not included in the previous editions. “Charles Warren Stoddard was possessed of unique literary gifts that were all his own. These gifts shine out in the pages of this book. Here we find that mustang humor of his forever kicking its silver heels with the most upsetting suddenness into the honeyed sweetness of his flowing poetry. Here, too, we find that gift of word-painting which makes all his writings a brilliant gallery of rich-hued and soft-lighted wonder…. But no, the old California that Stoddard loved lives on, and will, because he caught and preserved its spirit and its coloring, its light and life and music. As the redwood thicket holds the sunlight, so do Stoddard's words keep bright and living, though viewed through a mist of tears, the California of other days.” ( Book Introduction and David Wales)

7South-Sea Idyls

By Charles Warren Stoddard

The American Charles Warren Stoddard (1843–1909) wrote quite popular travel books, especially those about Polynesia. South-Sea Idyls (1873) was his most popular book. A series of letters to a friend, "They are," wrote William Dean Howells, "the lightest, sweetest, wildest, freshest things that were ever written about the life of that summer ocean." Stoddard also wrote The Lepers Of Molokai (1885), a book that brought Father Damien and his charges to public notice. - Summary by David Wales

8Over The Rocky Mountains To Alaska

By Charles Warren Stoddard

This 1899 travelogue is by one of the era’s most popular travel writers. A peek in how travel used to be. - Summary by David Wales

9Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy

By Theodore Lothrop Stoddard

Lothrop Stoddard's most famous treatise on race. Written in the aftermath of the First World War, Stoddard examines the racial trends of his time and makes predictions about the future. His main thesis is that worldwide white supremacy should not be taken for granted, and that other races would challenge it in the coming years. - Summary by Readerad