“The wish falls often warm upon my heart that I may learn nothing here that I cannot continue in the other world – that I may do nothing here but deeds that will bear fruit from heaven.”
It is said that it would require hundreds of years to read the titles alone of all the books in the world’s libraries. Even of those that issue each year from the press newly written, one person can read but a very meagre percentage. It is therefore a physical impossibility to read all the books which the art of printing has put within our reach. Even if our whole time were to be devoted to reading, we could in our brief years peruse but a small portion of them. Then it must be considered that in these busy days, when active duties press so imperiously, the most of us can devote but a few hours each day at the best to reading, and very many find, not hours, but minutes only, for this purpose. There are hosts of busy people who cannot read more than a score of books in a year.
It is settled, therefore, for us all, that we must be content to leave the great mass of printed books unread. Even those who are favored with most leisure cannot read one in a thousand or ten thousand of the books that offer themselves. And those whose hands are full of activities can scarcely touch the great mountain of printed matter that looms up invitingly before them.
The important question, then, is, on what principle should we select out of this great wilderness of literature the books we shall read? If I can read but a dozen volumes this year, how am I to determine what volumes of the thousands they shall be?
For all books are not alike good. There are books that are not worth reading at all. Then, of those that are good, the value is relative. The simplest wisdom teaches that we should choose those which will repay us most richly. Let us look at some principles relating to this subject which are worth of consideration.
There are books that are tainted with impurity. Of course all such are to be excluded from our catalogue. We can no more afford to read a vile book, however daintily and delicately the vileness may be draped, than we can afford to admit an impure companionship into our lives. Perhaps the most of us are not sufficiently careful in this matter. The country is flooded with publications, oftentimes attractively prepared, elaborately illustrated, their impurity concealed under harmless titles, but in which lurks the fatal poison or moral death. Many good people are beguiled into reading books or papers of this class as a recreation. When we remember that everything we read leave its impression upon our inner life and makes its enduring mark upon our character, the importance of this subject appears. The geologist will take you to some old rock formation, and will show you, on what was once the shore of an ancient sea, the traces left by the waves, the tracks of the bird that walked along in the sand one day, and the print of the leaf that fell and lay there. The shore hardened into rock, and the rock holds every trace through all these centuries. So it is in character building. Everything that we take into our life leaves its permanent impression.
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