Value of Good Books

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 15, 1871

Value of Good Books.

“I HAD from time to time passed a large distillery,” says a colporteur in Shenandoah valley, “and at last concluded that as I was hunting up just such sinners, I would call, although somewhat afraid of the place and its occupants. As I entered the door, a man from the darkness inside shouted with an oath that I was a fool to come to the stillhouse with religious books. He tried to make light of me and my visit, and offered me something to drink, but I spoke to him seriously of his fearful business, and finally proposed if he would promise not to soil it, to lend him a book. I had selected for him volume fifteen of the bound series of tracts, containing an excellent tract on the vending and using of ardent spirits. He took it, and as the result—left the business.

“The owner of the distillery railed against me as a troublesome fellow that interfered with other people’s business. The man left the book with him, and he too read it, and a few weeks after came to me and told me that he had determined he would never distil another drop of liquor.”