The second book by Huysmans concerning the religious development of the novelist Durtal, who in the first book experienced depravity and Satanism. In this book he struggles desperately to find a foothold in the Catholic faith. He is aided by his aesthetic sensitivities and the support of an understanding priest. But it is not until he undertakes a retreat in a Trappist monastery that he achieves depth of spiritual transformation.

A collection, The Culprit Fay and Other Poems, was published posthumously by his daughter in 1835. His best-known poems are the long title-poem of that collection and the patriotic "The American Flag" which was set as a cantata for two soloists, choir and orchestra by the Czech composer Antonin Dvořák in 1892-93, as his Op. 102. In the early part of the 19th Century both Drake and his friend Halleck were widely hailed by Americans as among the leading literary personalities and talents produced by this country...

Josephine Elizabeth Butler was a Victorian era British feminist who was strongly committed to liberal reforms. As a result of her efforts, international organisations including the International Abolitionist Federation were set up to campaign against state regulation of prostitution and the trafficking in women and children. This book reflects her abhorrence of slavery in all its forms and is particularly pertinent in our world of today.

A collection of simple Bible history stories for children in the younger grades. Beginning with Creation and ending with Pentecost, this book is written in a style that is easy for little ones to understand.

The People Who Wanted To Live in Caves. This little book takes us back to the time when our ancestors lived, or wanted to live, in caves. Unfortunately the caves of that time were mostly used by large animals like the Sabre Toothed Tiger and bears who could easily kill and eat our ancestors. Thus the subtitle of this book is The Age of Combat. This book, aimed at children, tries to show how certain things could have taken place to enable our species to eke out a living alongside the much stronger beasts, such as why we wanted to live in caves; the hazards and rewards of living in caves; the taming of fire; and how early tools were invented...

The Sermon On The Mount is one of the teachings in the ministry of Jesus Christ. In The Sermon On The Mount is found many sayings and important precepts held by Christian churches, sayings such as The Beatitudes, The Lord's Prayer, and other teachings about forgiveness, giving, and the "Golden Rule" about doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. Men such as Tolstoy and Gandhi found special meaning in The Sermon On The Mount, and Christians have read and listened to this important portion of scripture for centuries...

Probably written by the prophet Ezra, 2 Chronicles covers the period from the beginning of King Solomon's reign to the conclusion of the Babylonian exile. Like 1 Chronicles, it focuses on the correct way to worship God. (Introduction by Joy Chan)

Job was a prosperous landowner who encountered a series of misfortunes, leading him to question himself and his relation to his God. A grand sweep of ecclesiastical argument brings Job to a new level of insight and acceptance.

The Book of Ruth in the Bible takes a new interpretation as it comes to life in this dramatic reading. Ruth, a young Moabitess whose husband dies, must make the decision to stay in her homeland or go with her mother-in-law Naomi back to Naomi’s homeland of Israel, where she will most likely be an outcast. Will she choose to go back to her gods and old lifestyle, or follow her love for her mother-in-law and learn about a new God and way of life?

The seventeenth book of the King James Bible, Esther recounts a tale of two queens. Queen Vashti is the loveliest woman in the land, but when she refuses to come to her husband's banquet, she is banished from the kingdom. Hadassah is called to take her place - a beautiful young woman with a secret. Hadassah is Jewish, but her guardian warns her to keep her identity hidden. Taking on the name Esther - which means "hidden" - she moves in to the palace, but when a wicked man hatches a plot to rid the land of Jews, her guardian asks her to take on a terrible job...

In the Orthodox Church, during the Great Vespers of celebrated Saints, such as Saint Nicholas the Wonder-worker and the Holy Great Martyr Euphemia, selected passages are read from The Wisdom of Solomon, from the deuterocanonical books of the Holy Bible. While the translations used may be simpler, the power of the poetic verses asserts itself in the King James Version. [Please forgive my errors and stumblings. The Reader.]

The book of Romans was written by Paul the Apostle on his third missionary journey. The Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write about life as a person before Christ and life as a believer after Christ. He talks about the life before Christ being impossible to live, as the flesh has dominion over a person. Gloriously bringing hope, he writes of the One who did live the impossible life, and how He now lives within the believer. Jesus becomes the new manager of their body to produce what fruit glorifies Himself. This book is so clearly pointing to the Life-giver; the believer who was once dead, may walk in newness of life, having a intimate relationship with Jesus.

The Book of Revelation, often known simply as Revelation or the Apocalypse, is the final book of the New Testament and occupies a central place in Christian eschatology. Written in Koine Greek, its title is derived from the first word of the text, apokalypsis, meaning "unveiling" or "revelation." The author of the work identifies himself in the text as "John" and says that he was on Patmos, an island in the Aegean, when he was instructed by a heavenly figure to write down the contents of a vision...

The Acts of the Apostles, also known as The Book of Acts, is the fifth book of the New Testament. It follows the 4 Gospel accounts not only in order but in chronology. As the Gospels end with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Acts begins with the 11 Apostles and His other disciples embarking on the adventure of following Him and fulfilling His Great Commission (see Matthew 28:16-20 for the most commonly cited version of the Great Commission). Though several heroes of the early Christian church are included in this narrative, much of the book tells the story of the Apostle Paul from his conversion to Christianity to his missionary journeys. (Introduction by Jason Justice)

The Book of Tobit (from Hebrew: טובי‎ Tobi "my good") is a book of scripture that is part of the Catholic and Orthodox biblical canon, pronounced canonical by the Council of Carthage of 397 and confirmed for Roman Catholics by the Council of Trent (1546).

"This book contains short stories of animals that will charm the children. Such characters as the Funny Fox, the Happy Hare, the Willful Wolf, the Careful Cat and many others appear. Useful proverbs are woven into these tales. The stories will be of special use to teachers and parents who want to teach as well as to have a story for entertainment. The verses heading the stories, the little jingles throughout the tales and the beautiful illustrations, add much to the attractiveness of the book. One cannot help but laugh at the tricks of the Funny Fox and the Fairy Tales he relates...

Short funny stories for children that not only are fun to read and listen to, but have neat rhymes in each story. So if you like a bit of poetry thrown in amid the prose, these are for you. - Summary by Phil Chenevert

Little Bunny Cotton-tail is a very naughty bunny. He runs away, he won't go to school, and he keeps nibbling on Farmer Jones' cabbage! Mother Bunny will have to ask for help to get her little bunny to behave.

Another delightful Laura Rountree Smith children's book. Illustrated by F. R. Morgan We are three little kittens Who once lost our mittens The kittens now go about having adventures with their friend, Twinkle Toes, and learning valuable life lessons along the way. - Summary by JHedrick

Laurence Oliphant, author, international traveller, diplomatist and mystic, who spent a decade in later life under the influence of the spiritualist prophet Thomas Lake Harris, writes here under the amusing guise of Lord Frank Vanecourt, bringing us a veritable pot-pourri of events from everyday life in 1865 as he moves amongst the great, the good, and not so good who reside in the exclusive area of London's Piccadilly W1 and its surroundings. (Introduction by Nigel Carrington)

Published in 1897, this book describes the advent of Christianity in the United States from the landing of the first explorers with their mission to convert the natives to the time immediately following the Civil War. Bacon discusses the church's response to the social, political and religious issues of the day, and provides an introduction to the beginnings of such para-church organizations as the YMCA and American Bible Society.

In this dramatic reading of the classic epic Ben Hur, rediscover the wonder of three wise men who travel through the wilderness together. Thirty years later, Judah ben Hur accidentally looses a tile upon the head of the Roman governor and is sentenced to the galleys for life. When he escapes, he is caught up in his thirst for revenge against his accuser, Messala, and his search for the Messiah of his people, the King who is to come. As Judah learns more about this King, however, he begins to realize that the kingdom he is searching for may not be found in what he can see and the revenge he is seeking may not be found in the way that he expects...

If Lao Tzu then had revolted against the growing artificiality of life in his day, a return to nature must have seemed doubly imperative to his disciple Chuang Tzu, who flourished more than a couple of centuries later, when the bugbear of civilisation had steadily advanced. With chagrin he saw that Lao Tzu's teaching had never obtained any firm hold on the masses, still less on the rulers of China, whereas the star of Confucius was unmistakably in the ascendant. Within his own recollection the propagation of Confucian ethics had received a powerful impetus from Mencius, the second of China's orthodox sages...

This, volume 21 of the Chronicles of Canada series, describes the settlement of the Red River Colony by Lord Selkirk, and the struggles it had against the North-West Company. The fledgling settlement eventually became the city of Manitoba.

The novel Maria Chapdelaine portrays life in rural Quebec at the beginning of the 20th century. Published first in French in 1913, it is a famous example of the genre known as "novels of the land" . These stories sought to reinforce and preserve the cultural, linguistic, and religious heritage of French Canada — a heritage at risk because of French Canada's historical situation as a conquered enclave inside English North America. Maria is a young woman whose family works the farm they have cleared from the harsh Quebec forest — "a land that has no pity...

True Devotion to Mary is a treatise of what it means to have devotion to Our Lady. Montfort goes through the various aspects of this devotion explaining what is true devotion and outlining what is false devotion. The book also includes a series of meditations and prayers that assist in making a consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Montfort explains that devotion to Mary is not an optional devotion like any other devotion to the Saints. He boldly claims that devotion to Mary is necessary in becoming a living image of Christ in this world...

Southern Arabia recounts a threatening four-month journey into North Eastern Ethiopia by the Bents. These brave travelers were the first to travel without disguise in a region where Westerners had formerly been fortunate to escape with their lives.

Macarius the Great of Egypt (c. 300 – 391) was one of the Desert Fathers of early Christian history. A wealth of wisdom and joy can be found in these homilies.

Swann's Way is the first book in the seven-volume work In Search of Lost Time, or Remembrance of Things Past, by Marcel Proust. It is a novel written in the form of an autobiography. Proust's most prominent work, it is popularly known for its length and the notion of involuntary memory, the most famous example being the "episode of the madeleine."

"Swann's Way" is the first of the seven parts of Marcel Proust's great autobiographical novel "In Search of Lost Time." From the very first page the reader is drawn into the many facets of memory, memory as prompted by all the human senses. "Swann's Way was rejected by a number of publishers, including Fasquelle, Ollendorff, and the Nouvelle Revue Française . André Gide was famously given the manuscript to read to advise NRF on publication, and leafing through the seemingly endless collection of memories and philosophizing or melancholic episodes, came across a few minor syntactic errors, which made him decide to turn the work down in his audit...

"In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower" is the second volume of Proust's heptalogy, "In Search of Lost Time" . Shadow insightfully deals with adolescent longing, and continues Proust's profound meditation on the nature of memory. The original French version was awarded the prestigious Prix Goncourt in 1919. NOTE: This book contains language that would have been considered appropriate at the time and which may not be appropriate today.

"Books of the Marvels of the World" or "Description of the World" (Divisament dou monde), also nicknamed "Il Milione" ("The Million") or "Oriente Poliano", but commonly called "The Travels of Marco Polo", is a 13th-century travelogue written down by Rustichello da Pisa from stories told by Marco Polo, describing the travels of the latter through Asia, Persia, China, and Indonesia between 1271 and 1291.It's been a very famous and popular book since the 14th century, creating the image of Marco Polo as the icon of the bold traveller...