Never Leave off Study

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 19, 1882

Never Leave off Study.

A MAN who has had a fair start in an education ought never to leave off studying. A minister who rests upon the knowledge achieved in early life will dry up like an old corn stalk. He may rattle around, but he cannot grow any more, nor be profitable for anything. A student at sixty or seventy may keep fresh by hard study. The late Taylor Lewis was entirely deaf but full of wisdom to the last, pursuing the highest studies with zest amid increasing physical infirmities. Lord Beaconsfield read and wrote and studied to his last day.

Gladstone, the present illustrious Premier of England recently gave astonishing proof of his knowledge of Greek and interest in Homer.

We have known young men to quit college and their books at the same time. They knew less of the classics at forty than at twenty. What a terrible shame that is for a lawyer, doctor, or minister. Rufus Choate always kept up his classical studies. Adam Clarke was a prodigy of learning. John Quincy Adams renewed his youth by perseveringly gaining knowledge to the last.

If you want to dry up like a puff-ball, quit studying. If you prefer to die early, lay aside your books and fold your hands and take it easy. If not, keep the best fixtures, Bibles, dictionaries, commentaries, text-books, periodicals. Consult the highest authorities, study for yourself at original sources. The ablest leaders, scholars, statesmen, and ministers in Europe are old men, over sixty, and some of them over eighty. We must not give up too soon; give up, never, not even to death. We beseech our ministers to keep themselves supplied with the best reference books, and to study hard and never stop. Keep all you have, and gain more constantly.—California Christian Advocate.