Foreword to the First Edition

Tuis story is true. It tells the eternally new tale of the matchless charm of our Lord Jesus Christ. One look at that loveliness, and, though the one who looked did not even remember His name, she was His for ever.

The story came to us at a time of disappointment and temptation to downheartedness. And mightily it cheered us. It spoke in a clear, glad voice, and it said: ‘‘ Fear not at all. Where your hands cannot reach and your love cannot help, His hands can reach and His love can help. So why are you afraid?”’

And it said that miles of space and solid walls and locked doors are nothing to Love. Nothing at all.

And it said — and we set it down with a great hope that it may cheer some other, for it said it very earnestly: ‘‘ The seed is not your poor little word. The seed is the Word of God.’’

DOHNAVUR,
S. Inpia.