The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Good Time Coming, by T. S. Arthur

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Title: The Good Time Coming

Author: T. S. Arthur

Posting Date: August 30, 2009 [EBook #4632]
Release Date: November, 2003
First Posted: February 20, 2002

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GOOD TIME COMING ***

Produced by Charles Aldarondo. HTML version by Al Haines.

THE GOOD TIME COMING.

BY

T. S. ARTHUR.

BOSTON:

PHILADELPHIA:

1855.

JTABLE 10 44 1

PREFACE.

LIFE is a mystery to all men, and the more profound the deeper the
striving spirit is immersed in its own selfish instincts. How
earnestly do we all fix our eyes upon the slowly-advancing future,
impatiently waiting that good time coming which never comes! How
fast the years glide by, beginning in hope and ending in
disappointment! Strange that we gain so little of true wisdom amid
the sharp disappointments that meet us at almost every turn! How
keenly the writer has suffered with the rest, need not be told. It
will be enough to say that he, too, has long been an anxious waiter
for the "good time coming," which has not yet arrived.

But hope should not die because of our disappointments. There is a
good time coming, and for each one of us, if we work and wait for
it; but we must work patiently, and look in the right direction.
Perhaps our meaning will be plainer after our book is read.

THE GOOD TIME COMING.

CHAPTER I.

THERE was not a cloud in all the bright blue sky, nor a shadow upon
the landscape that lay in beauty around the lovely home of Edward
Markland; a home where Love had folded her wings, and Peace sought a
perpetual abiding-place. The evening of a mild summer day came
slowly on, with its soft, cool airs, that just dimpled the shining
river, fluttered the elm and maple leaves, and gently swayed the
aspiring heads of the old poplars, which, though failing at the
root, still lifted, like virtuous manhood, their greenest branches
to heaven.

In the broad porch, around every chaste column of which twined
jessamine, rose, or honeysuckle, filling the air with a delicious
fragrance beyond the p