This book is addressed to those in AFFLICTION. There is a touching tradition, to which he has elsewhere referred, regarding the Jewish Temple of old, that it had a gateway reserved exclusively for mourners. Such is the present volume. It opens up a pathway to God's sanctuary trodden by the footsteps of sorrow. It is sacred to dimmed eyes, and broken hearts, and tender memories. Moreover, though not exclusively, it is the wide family of the bereaved the writer has chiefly in view.A few words on the TITLE. Nothing is more impressive in the desert journeys of the Israelites, than the miraculous moving Pillar which preceded them. That Pillar, as they advanced by day, took the form of a column: when they halted, it spread itself over the tabernacle as a canopy of cloud. It was nothing else than the Shekinah-the visible symbol of the Divine Presence. It resolved itself into a flaming fire by night; an equally glorious emblem, under the star-lit vault of heaven, of Jehovah's guidance.