Important American periodical dating back to 1850.

This meticulously edited Arthur Ransome collection includes his best known "Swallows and Amazons" series of children's adventure novels, as well as other children's books, his literary studies and historical writings. This unique collection is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents: Swallows and Amazons Series: Swallows and Amazons Swallowdale Peter Duck Winter Holiday Coot Club Pigeon Post We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea Secret Water The Big Six Missee Lee The Picts and the Martyrs: Or Not Welcome At All Great Northern? Children's Books: Old Peter's Russian Tales The Soldier and Death Pond and Stream The Child's Book of the Seasons Other Writings: Russia in 1919 The Crisis in Russia Oscar Wilde – A Critical Study Open Letter to America

"The Soldier and Death" by Arthur Ransome is an old Russian folk story. The narrative revolves around a man who seizes 'death', places it in a bag, and hovers it from a tree. No one dies as a result. Excerpt: "The devils looked at all the money they had lost. It seemed a pity to lose all that good silver and gold. "Tear him to pieces, brothers," they cried, "tear him to pieces, eat him and have done!" The soldier tapped his little pipe on the table. "First make sure," says he, "who eats whom." And with that he whips out his sack, and, says he, to the devils, who were all gnashing their teeth and making ready to fall on him, "what do you call this?" "It's a sack," said the devils. "Is it?" says the soldier. "Then, by the word of God, get into it!" And the next minute all those devils were tumbling over each other and getting into the sack, squeezing in one on the top of another until the last one had got inside. Then the soldier tied up the sack with a good double knot, hung it on a nail, and lay down to sleep."

On September 15, 1944, General William Rupertus and the 16,000 Marines of the U.S. 1st Marine Division moved confidently toward Peleliu, an obscure speck of coral island 500 miles east of the Philippines. Though he knew a tough fight awaited him, Rupertus anticipated a quick two-day crush to victory, strengthening Gen. Douglas MacArthur's flank in his drive on the Philippines. Instead, as The Devil's Anvil reveals, American forces struggled desperately for more than two months against 10,000 deeply entrenched Japanese soldiers who had spent six months preparing for the battle. By the time the weary Americans could claim a victory, the fight had become one of the war's most costly successes. Even more tragic, Peleliu was later deemed a more or less unnecessary seizure. For those who survived, Peleliu remains a bitter, emotionally exhausting chapter of their lives. In The Devil's Anvil, Hallas reports on the personal combat experience of scores of officers and enlisted men who were at Peleliu. These men describe the heartbreaking loss of friends, the pain of wounds, and the heat, dirt, and exhaustion of a fight that never seemed to end.

“Secret duties are the most soul-enriching duties," writes Brooks in this treatise on private prayer. "Look! as secret meals make fat bodies—so secret duties make fat souls. And as secret trades brings in great earthly riches, so secret prayers makes many rich in spiritual blessings and in heavenly riches. Private prayer is that secret key of heaven which unlocks all the treasures of glory to the soul. The best riches and the sweetest mercies, God usually gives to His people—when they are in their closets upon their knees. All the graces of the saints are enlivened, and nourished, and strengthened by the sweet secret influences which their souls fall under, when they are in their closet-communion with God. Certainly there are none so rich in gracious experiences, as those who are most exercised in closet duties. As the tender dew which falls in the silent night makes the grass and herbs and flowers to flourish and grow more abundantly than great showers of rain which fall in the day; so secret prayer will more abundantly cause the sweet herbs of grace and holiness to grow and flourish in the soul, than all those more open, public, and visible duties of religion, which too, too often, are mingled and mixed with the sun and wind of pride and hypocrisy.”