HINTS ON READING | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 3, 1887

HINTS ON READING.

THE readers, Coleridge has divided into four classes. He says: "The first class of readers may be compared to an hour-glass; their reading being as the sand; it runs in and runs out, and leaves not a vestige behind. A second class resembles a sponge, which imbibes everything and returns it in nearly the same state. A third class is like a jelly-bag, which allows all that is pure to pass away, and retains only the refuse and dregs. The fourth class may be compared to the slave of Golconda, who, casting aside all that is worthless, preserves only the pure gems." It is to be feared that in the present day the greatest number of readers belong to the first of these classes. The amount read is sometimes almost fabulous, but the results are comparatively trifling. Volume after volume is perused; pamphlets and papers are mentally consumed, but the stores of knowledge are not perceptibly increased.

This charge lies not only against those who read secular works; it applies to a great extent to those who read the Scriptures and other treatises upon things divine. Lord Bacon once said that "reading makes a full man." He could not have meant the kind of reading that is now too prevalent. The omnivorous readers, the readers who skim through page after page; the butterfly readers, who taste some flowers of literature here and there, but never settle down to a resolute extraction of the sweets, are found at the year's end, after all their reading, not more "full" intellectually, but often more foolish than before. Why is this? Because in these express days the reading has been done as quickly as possible, and because what is read one hour is buried beneath a heap of multifarious matter the next hour. But if a man read upon a prudent plan, if he digest what he mentally receives, his reading will become a delightful source of very extensive information and sound wisdom.

Reading should be in moderation. It is possible to devour whole libraries and yet learn nothing. It is said that Miss Martineau often read in one hour no more than a single page of a good book. An eminent divine and author is said to have had but three books—the Bible, Josephus's works, and Cruden's Concordance. A celebrated French author being laughed at because of the smallness of his library, replied, "Ah, when I want a book I make it." On the other hand, Madame de Stael-Holstein is said to have devoured six hundred novels. Louis XVI., whilst imprisoned for a period of five months and seven days, read one hundred and fifty-seven volumes, or one book a day. Such literary gluttony could have left little good result. Too much reading is as injurious to the mind as too much feeding is to the body.—The Quiver, for September.