The Light in the Clearing: A Tale of the North Country in the Time of Silas Wright

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Light in the Clearing, by Irving Bacheller, Illustrated by Arthur I. Keller
The Spirit of Man is the Candle of the Lord —PROVERBS XX, 27
TO MY FRIEND THOMAS R. PROCTOR, OF UTICA LOVER OF THE TRUE IDEALS OF DEMOCRACY WHOSE LIFE HAS BEEN A SHINING EXAMPLE TO ALL MEN OF WEALTH HONORED GENTLEMAN AND PHILANTHROPIST AT THE GATE OF THE LAND OF WHICH I HAVE WRITTEN DEDICATE THESE CHRONICLES OF THAT LAND AND OF ITS GREAT HERO
From the memoirs of one who knew Governor Wright and lived through many of the adventures herein described and whose life ended full of honors early in the present century. It is understood that he chose the name Barton to signalize his affection for a friend well known in the land of which he was writing.
THE AUTHOR.
The Light in the Clearing shone upon many things and mostly upon those which, above all others, have impassioned and perpetuated the Spirit of America and which, just now, seem to me to be worthy of attention. I believe that spirit to be the very candle of the Lord which, in this dark and windy night of time, has flickered so that the souls of the faithful have been afraid. But let us be of good cheer. It is shining brighter as I write and, under God, I believe it shall, by and by, be seen and loved of all men.
One self-contained, Homeric figure, of the remote countryside in which I was born, had the true Spirit of Democracy and shed its light abroad in the Senate of the United States and the Capitol at Albany. He carried the candle of the Lord. It led him to a height of self-forgetfulness achieved by only two others—Washington and Lincoln. Yet I have been surprised by the profound and general ignorance of this generation regarding the career of Silas Wright, of whom Whittier wrote these lines:
Man of the millions thou art lost too soon! Portents at which the bravest stand aghast The birth throes of a future strange and vast Alarm the land. Yet thou so wise and strong Suddenly summoned to the burial bed, Lapped in its slumbers deep and ever long, Hear'st not the tumult surging over head. Who now shall rally Freedom's scattering host? Who wear the mantle of the leader lost?