Our Reading by A. M. Lindsay

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 4, 1873

Our Reading.

By A. M. Lindsay

The world is filled with reading of all kinds—on the arts, and sciences, literature, and the common news of the day. A person will be very much in the abstract in accordance with what he gives himself to read. It is through and by the influences brought to bear on the mind that character will be formed. Those persons who are without an object in reading, only to pass away time that otherwise hangs heavily on their hands, will perhaps never awaken to feel that they have a power of intellect that might, by cultivation, be made of value to themselves and others. The very object of life is lost sight of by the majority. A continued round of daily duties fills up the time, in which excesses in pride and pleasure have their share. There are many learned in the knowledge of this world, while a complete and wretched poverty exists in regard to knowledge of the greatest moment to their everlasting welfare. Jesus said, “Many are called, but few are chosen,” and why? It is doubtless because the mind has not been rightly trained to appreciate those things that possess true merit. The mind has been following in a certain channel so long, it is hard to face right about from serving self to serving God. We should be very much surprised to be called a nation of heathen, perhaps, yet would it not be true in a certain sense? The Bible has been multiplied in many languages, and in our own land there are few families without a copy or a knowledge of it, yet a dearth exists in relation to its vital points, even among those who profess to follow its teachings. All true knowledge is summed up in these words of the wisest man that ever lived, and is the conclusion of the whole matter: “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” If our reading tends in this direction, we shall be making advancement in that which is of the greatest value to ourselves—elevating, ennobling, and eminently satisfactory as to its results. A. M. Lindsay.