Let There Be Light

OTHER BOOKS BY AL LACY

Prologue

Introduction

T
HE
E
NCYCLOPEDIA
B
RITANNICA
reports that the mail order business, also called direct mail marketing, “is a method of merchandising in which the seller’s offer is made through mass mailing of a circular or catalog, or advertisement placed in a newspaper or magazine, in which the buyer places his order by mail.”

Britannica goes on to say that “mail order operations have been known in the United States in one form or another since colonial days but not until the latter half of the nineteenth century did they assume a significant role in domestic trade.”

Thus the mail order market was known when the big gold rush took place in this country in the 1840s and 1850s. At that time, prospectors, merchants, and adventurers raced from the east to the newly discovered goldfields in the west. One of the most famous was the California gold rush in 1848–49, when discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill, near Sacramento, brought more than forty thousand men to California. Though few struck it rich, their presence stimulated economic growth, the lure of which brought even more men to the west.

The married men sent for their wives and children, wanting to stay and make their home there. Most of the gold rush men were single and also desired to stay in the west, but there were about two hundred men for every woman. Being familiar with the mail order concept, they began advertising in eastern newspapers for women to come west and marry them. Thus was born the “mail order bride.”

Women by the hundreds began answering the ads. Often when men and their prospective brides corresponded, they agreed to send no photographs; they would accept each other by the spirit of the letters rather than on a physical basis. Others, of course, did exchange photographs.

The mail order bride movement accelerated after the Civil War ended in April 1865, when men went west by the thousands to make their fortunes on the frontier. Many of the marriages turned out well, while others were disappointing and ended in desertion by one or the other of the mates, or by divorce.

In the Mail Order Bride fiction series, we tell stories intended to grip the heart of the reader, bring some smiles, and maybe wring out a few tears. As always, we weave in the gospel of Jesus Christ and run threads of Bible truth that apply to our lives today.

I
N
M
ALACHI
4:2, God tells us that the day is coming when the Sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings. The Sun of righteousness is also the Son of God.

There is only one sun in our solar system, and there is only one Mediator between God and men. As at sunrise each day, the sun dispels the darkness of night; so Jesus Christ, the Sun of righteousness, dispels the spiritual darkness in the human heart when that heart is opened to Him.

When the Scripture speaks of the “light of the glorious gospel of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:4), the very light of the gospel is the Sun of righteousness, Jesus Christ!

Jesus said in John 12:46, “I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.” As the earth cannot abide in darkness where the sun is shining, neither can a human heart abide in darkness where the Sun of righteousness shines.

“For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6).

There is an ancient allegory written for children based upon the premise of this verse, but serviceable to adults.

Once upon a time to a cave, deep underground, came a voice calling: “Mr. Cave! Mr. Cave! Come up to the earth’s surface and see my light!”

The cave called back, “Who are you?”

“My name is Mr. Sun. Come up and see my light.”

The cave retorted, “I don’t know what you mean. There isn’t anything but darkness.”

“Oh, but there is! Come up and see!”

Finally, Mr. Cave ventured forth and was surprised to see brilliant light everywhere. Looking up to the sun, he said, “Come with me and see my darkness.”

“What is darkness?” asked Mr. Sun.

“Come and see.”

So Mr. Sun accepted the invitation. In his blazing brightness, he entered the cave, looked around, and asked, “Where is your darkness?”

Where the Sun of righteousness is, there is no darkness! We praise the Lord that He has used our novels to shine the gospel light into the hearts of many of our unsaved readers, and they have come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Saviour.

May this final book in the Mail Order Bride series be a blessing to our Christian readers, and may it also be used of God to open sin-darkened hearts and say, “Let there be light.”

I
T WAS
T
UESDAY AFTERNOON
, May 5, 1863. Beneath a clear, sunny Missouri sky, the train rolled southwestward toward Kansas City. The early spring day was unusually warm and in the coach just ahead of the caboose, lovely twenty-two-year-old Lorna Lee turned to elderly Madeline Rudeen. “It’s a bit stuffy in here, don’t you think?”

Madeline’s wrinkles deepened around her mouth as she smiled and fanned her face with her hand. “It certainly is. Would you mind lifting the window a little?”

Lorna smiled. “I was going to ask if you’d mind if I did that very thing.”

Lorna and Madeline had boarded the train in Chicago and had barely talked enough to become acquainted. Madeline had fallen asleep shortly after the train had slipped into its gentle sway and the wheels settled into their rhythmic clicking beneath the coach. She had only awakened for brief moments until some twenty minutes ago.