BOOKS: THEIR INFLUENCE AND POWER.
By John Hall
On one occasion James the First, of England, made a visit to Oxford, and was publicly received in the Bodleian Library. He said, “If I were not a king, I would choose to be a University man. If it ever should be my lot to be a prisoner, I could wish for nothing better than to be imprisoned in this room, with all these books around about me for my friends, my counselors, my comforters, and my advisers. Books are among the best friends that it is possible for any man to have. They will be silent when he does not wish to converse, they will speak to him when he desires to be spoken to; they will take no offense at his silence, neither will they take any offense at his comments. They include the most illustrious of the living and the most illustrious of the dead. Having books, a man can number among his friends those who have distinguished themselves in civil life and in military life; he can have friends from the state, he can have friends from the church. He can entertain them all his life at the least possible expense, because they ask no more at his hands than the tenderest accommodations and the quietest place in his dwelling.” Something like that was said regarding books many centuries ago. It has been said again and again by multitudes on platforms and in print; but it has not always been assigned to its cultivated and talented author, many of whose other works are now practically forgotten. Books, in many respects, are like men; but they are like the greatest of men, men so great that they can make their voices heard through the coming generations. Said Fenelon, “If all the crowns of Europe were placed at my disposal on condition that I should abandon my books and my studies, I should spurn the crowns away, and stand by the books.” Such utterances as these would have been impossible if there had not been an immense power and an immense attractiveness about books. The Lord enjoined that the Hebrew king when he came to wield his sceptre should with his own hand, write out a book, and keep it by him, that it might instruct him in his royal duties, and guard and warn him against the temptations of his station. God himself made communications to man, and it pleased him at length to put them in the form of a book. When Jesus was here on the earth he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath-day, as his custom was, and the book was offered to him, and he read, and he was pleased to speak out of the book. Infinite wisdom! Incarnate love! The Son of God himself condescending to speak to men from the wisdom of a book! When he left the world he made provision for another book, to be given to mankind through his servants, and so we have the New Testament; and by the book he is continuing to teach men. By the book he will continue to teach men, we believe, until the trump of the archangel shall sound, and the Son of God shall come again in his glory. “For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven,” and for ever that word is settled to be the instructor and the guide of men on the earth. If men will not hear Moses and the prophets, if men will not believe the testimony to the spiritual and eternal world, that is borne in the book, neither will they be persuaded, all that spiritualism says to the contrary notwithstanding, though one rose from the dead. —REV. JOHN HALL, D.D., in the Illustrated Christian Weekly.