The Tread of Years

We of the present are like men standing on a high bluff overlooking a great seaport. From time to time there go out from this port the ships of the ages loaded with the precious treasures of history. As we look now, a great ship with sails set is riding over the horizon into the gathering mist of the eternal past. The ship which we see leaving is the era which began with the close of the Civil War.
Now that this great age is sailing beyond the horizon, soon to be one with Nineveh, Babylon, and ancient Rome, its figure takes on the glory of the mighty past, and we begin to realize that it will stand in history as among the greatest eras of the long story of mankind.
We esteem it a privilege to present this book as a record of a beautiful life which was woven like a bright strand through all the intricate fabric of the age following the Civil War. Isabel Coston’s childhood was clouded by the awful sorrows brought on by the Civil War. After a long life of unselfish service to humanity and to the kingdom of Christ, she passed away as Mrs. Isabel C. Byrum, devoted wife and loving mother.
We shall not here anticipate the reader’s pleasure in tracing out the well-beloved life that spans this, the greatest of modern ages. We shall only say that it will be time well spent to walk in this picture gallery of the recent past and see portrayed with artistic skill and spiritual beauty the record of a life that was set in a great era and that gathered up into itself the joys and sorrows, the light and shadow, the grace and beauty of a day now forever past. C. E. BROWN