Showing results by narrator "Ella Porter" in All Categories

The positions of the stars indicated the time to plough, and the time to sow. To the mariner who was seeking a way across the trackless ocean, the heavenly bodies offered the only reliable marks by which his path could be guided. There was, accordingly, a stimulus both from intellectual curiosity and from practical necessity to follow the movements of the stars. In the ensuing chapters we have endeavoured to sketch the lives and the work of the great philosophers, by whose labours the science of astronomy has been created.

I had long been looking from the wildwoods and gardens of the Northern States to those of the warm South, and at last, all draw-backs overcome, I set forth [from Indianapolis] on the first day of September, 1867, joyful and free, on a thousand-mile walk to the Gulf of Mexico. Crossing the Ohio at Louisville, I steered through the big city by compass without speaking a word to any one.

"North and South" is a social novel by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell. She uses a protagonist from southern England to present and comment on the perspectives of both mill owners and mill workers in an industrializing city. "North and South" is set in the fictional industrial town of Milton in the North of England. Forced to leave her home in the tranquil rural south, Margaret Hale settles with her parents in Milton where she witnesses the brutal world wrought by the industrial revolution and employers and workers clashing in the first organized strikes.

"The Old English Baron" is an early Gothic novel by Clara Reeve. The story follows the adventures of Sir Philip Harclay, who returns to medieval England to find that Arthur Lord Lovel, the friend of his youth, is dead. His cousin Walter Lord Lovel had succeeded to the estate, and sold the family castle to the baron, Fitz-Owen. Among the baron's household were his two sons and daughter Emma, several young gentlemen relations being educated with the sons, and Edmund Twyford, the son of a peasant, who had been brought to live with them.

"The Valley of Vision" is an inspirational novel by Henry Van Dyke. From the Preface: "Why do you choose such a title as The Valley of Vision for your book," said my friend; "do you mean that one can see farther from the valley than from the mountain-top?" The mountain-top is the place of outlook over the earth and the sea. But it is in the valley of suffering, endurance, and self-sacrifice that the deepest visions of the meaning of life come to us.

"The Pilgrim'S Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come; Delivered under the Similitude of a Dream" is a 1678 Christian allegory written by John Bunyan. It is regarded as one of the most significant works of religious English literature, has been translated into more than 200 languages, and has never been out of print. The protagonist is an everyman character, and the plot centers on his journey from his hometown, the "City of Destruction" ("this world"), to the "Celestial City" ("that which is to come": Heaven).

"The Prayers of St Paul" contains nine expository lectures by William H. Griffith Thomas. One of the most valuable elements in the Epistles of St Paul is their revelation of the writer's spiritual life. While they are necessarily doctrinal and theological, dealing with the fundamental realities of the Christian religion, they are also intensely personal, and express very much of the Apostle's own experience. They depict in a marked degree the sources and characteristics of the spiritual life.

"War and Peace" (1869) is a classic novel by Leo Tolstoy, which is regarded as a central work of world literature and one of Tolstoy's finest literary achievements. The novel chronicles the history of the French invasion of Russia and the impact of the Napoleonic era on Tsarist society through the stories of five Russian aristocratic families.

"All of Grace" ("An Earnest Word with Those Who Are Seeking Salvation by the Lord Jesus Christ") by Charles H. Spurgeon aims to provide guidance for those who try to find the true meaning of life.

"A Happy Boy" by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson is a Norwegian peasant tale. Excerpt: "What makes you cry?" "Oh, my goat - my goat!" "Why, where is the goat?" asked the mother, glancing up at the roof. "It will never come back any more," said the boy. "Dear me! how can that be?" Oyvind would not confess at once. "Has the fox carried it off?" "Oh, I wish it were the fox!" "You must have lost your senses!" cried the mother. "What has become of the goat?" "Oh - oh - oh! I was so unlucky. I sold it for a twisted bun!"

"The Secret of Everyday Things" by Jean-Henri Fabre provides simple explanations for children about basic materials, their use and impacts. Contents: Thread, Pins, Needles, Silk, Wool, Flax and Hemp, Weaving, Woolen Cloth, Moths, Napery, Calico, Dyeing and Printing, Dyestuffs, Heat-Conduction, Human Habitations, Clothing, Ashes - Potash, Soap, Fire, Matches, Wood and Charcoal, Coal and Coal-Gas, Combustion, Heating, Lighting, Kerosene Oil, Glass, Iron, Rust, Tin-Plating, Pottery, Coffee, Sugar, etc.

"The Port of Missing Men" is a thriller by Meredith Nicholson. Excerpt from the book: "The knowledge that you're alive gives me no pleasure," growled the grim old Austrian premier. "Thank you!" laughed John Armitage, to whom he had spoken. "You have lost none of your old amiability; but for a renowned diplomat, you are remarkably frank. When I called on you in Paris, a year ago, I was able to render you - I believe you admitted it - a slight service."

"The White Linen Nurse" is a romance by Eleanor Hallowell Abbott. Excerpt from the book: The White Linen Nurse was so tired that her noble expression ached. Incidentally her head ached and her shoulders ached and her lungs ached and the ankle-bones of both feet ached quite excruciatingly. But nothing of her felt permanently incapacitated except her noble expression. Like a strip of lip-colored lead suspended from her poor little nose by two tugging wire-gray wrinkles her persistently conscientious sickroom smile seemed to be whanging aimlessly against her front teeth.

Wherein Have We Robbed God? is "Malachi’s Message for the Men of Today" by G. Campbell Morgan. In this volume he answers this always actual question to his readers raised by the penultimate prophet of the Old Testament.

"The Uttermost Farthing" is a mystery by R. Austin Freeman. Excerpt: Humphrey Challoner was a great savant spoiled by untimely wealth. When I knew him he had lapsed into a mere dilettante; at least, so I thought at the time, though subsequent revelations showed him in a rather different light. He had some reputation as a criminal anthropologist and had formerly been well known as a comparative anatomist, but when I made his acquaintance, he seemed to be occupied chiefly in making endless additions to the specimens in his private museum.

"Religions of Ancient China" is a summary of the different spiritual beliefs in China. The audiobook has five chapters: The Ancient Faith, Confucianism, Taoism, Materialism, Buddhism and Other Religions. Excerpt from the book: The problem of the universe has never offered the slightest difficulty to Chinese philosophers. Before the beginning of all things, there was Nothing. In the lapse of ages Nothing coalesced into Unity, the Great Monad.

"The Lady from Nowhere" is a detective novel by Fergus Hume. Excerpt from the book: On the night of July 24th, in the year 1896, between the hours of eleven and twelve, Grangebury, a little-known suburb of London, was wrapped in slumber. The lamps were then extinguished by order of an economical municipality, the few lights still twinkling from the upper windows of various houses disappeared, and the little town lay under moon and stars as silent and almost as lonely as the spell-bound cities in eastern fables.

Millions of men are in the outlying regions, far off from God and peace; for these we pray, and to these we give warning. But just now we have to do with a smaller company, who are not far from the kingdom, but have come right up to the wicket gate which stands at the head of the way of life. One would think that they would hasten to enter, for a free and open invitation is placed over the entrance, the porter waits to welcome them, and there is but this one way to eternal life.

"The Amazing Interlude" is a romance by Mary Roberts Rinehart. Excerpt: The stage on which we play our little dramas of life and love has for most of us but one setting. It is furnished out with approximately the same things. Characters come, move about and make their final exits through long-familiar doors. And the back drop remains approximately the same from beginning to end. So Sara Lee Kennedy had a back drop that had every appearance of permanency.

Quiet Hints to Growing Preachers is a book of advice by Charles E. Jefferson. As an experienced clergyman, he could write short but sharp, smart and still relevant remarks, like: "If a minister says he loves God, and in his heart slights or despises his people, he is not only a liar but a murderer of the spiritual life of his parish."