Not yet a prey of death; even not yet appointed to die; but in such a way, that death casts already its somber shadow upon you.
So it is at the deathbed.
So it is at the beginning in every sick-room.
And therefore against that power of death with every deathbed and in every sick-room the sound of the Prince of Life must go out.
Hence this volume with the title: In the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Meditations in the style of what I wrote before in Honey from the Rock; in Days of Glad Tidings; and others.
What we received as inheritance from former ages for the sick-room and for the deathbed, speaks no longer our language; and however deeply thought out and tender it might be, it has become too labored for many ears. Before they grasp the meaning, the charm for them is lost. So it does not interest; does not carry them along; and tunes, nor supports, nor edifies the hidden man of the heart.
Hence the effort, here put forth, to offer something at least, that as a beginning can meet the existing want. A series of meditations. First, to weep with those who weep, written for others on whose way of life I saw that Death had cast his somber shadow, whether they came out again into the happy light, or traveled the valley to the grave to the end; later, after I myself had wept at the grave of an unforgettable child, completed from experience of my own soul.
May this little volume find an opened ear at many a sick-bed. May it address many a wrestler in that bitter struggle, against which there is no resistance. And also at the dying, and after the departure, of those who are torn away from the heart, may it pour balsam into the wound of those who remained behind.
Kuyper.
AMSTERDAM, June 28, 1893.
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