Excerpt from The Ancient Allan From common sinners like myself such conduct might be expected, but in the case Of those who are obviously poised on the topmost rungs of the Jacobean - I mean, the heavenly - ladder it is legitimate to inquire why they Show such reluctance in jumping Off. As a matter of fact, the only persons whom individually I have seen quite willing to die, except now and again to save some body else whom they were so foolish as to care for more than they did for themselves, have been not those 'upon whom the light has shined, ' to quote an earnest paper I chanced to read this morning, but, to quote again, 'the sinful heathen wandering in their native blackness, ' by which I understand the writer to refer to their moral state and not to their sable skins wherein for the most part they are also condemned to wander, that is if they happened to have been born south of a certain degree Of latitude. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.