of insanity as demoniacal possession, and we no longer immure
people with diseased brains in the secluded apartments of lovely
houses. But we still tend to think of the sufferings of the heart
and soul as if they were unreal, imaginary, hypochondriacal things,
which could be cured by a little resolution and by intercourse with
cheerful society; and by this foolish and secretive reticence we
lose both sympathy and help. Mrs. Proctor, the friend of Carlyle
and Lamb, a brilliant and somewhat stoical lady, is recorded to
have said to a youthful relative of a sickly habit, with stern
emphasis, "Never tell people how you are! They don't want to know."
Up to a certain point this is shrewd and wholesome advice. One does
undoubtedly keep some kinds of suffering in check by resolutely
minimising them. But there is a significance in suffering too. It
is not all a clumsy error, a well-meaning blunder. It is a
deliberate part of the constitution of the world.

Why should we wish to conceal the fact that we have suffered, that
we suffer, that we are likely to suffer to the end? There are
abundance of people in like case; the very confession of the fact
may help others to endure, because one of the darkest miseries of
suffering is the horrible sense of isolation that it brings. And if
this book casts the least ray upon the sad problem--a ray of the
light that I have learned to recognise is truly there--I shall be
more than content. There is no morbidity in suffering, or in
confessing that one suffers. Morbidity only begins when one
acquiesces in suffering as being incurable and inevitable; and the
motive of this book is to show that it is at once curative and
curable, a very tender part of a wholly loving and Fatherly design.

A. C. B.