EXTRACT OF WORDS | AdventAI

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, March 4, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 10

EXTRACT OF WORDS.

THE following anecdote is related of an Eastern monarch, and is exceedingly suggestive. We once heard of a distinguished physician who thanked God because he was deaf, since it saved him from hearing a world of nonsense. But we are inclined to think that quite as much nonsense enters through the eye as through the ear. The monarch had a library containing books enough to load a thousand camels.

“I cannot read all this,” said he. “Select the cream and essence of it, and let me have that.”

Whereupon the librarian distilled this ocean of words way down to thirty camel-loads.

“Too bulky yet,” said the monarch. “I have not time to read that.”

Whereupon the thirty loads were doubly distilled, and a selection was made, sufficient to load a single ass.

“Too bulky yet,” said the monarch.

Whereupon it was trebly distilled, and the only residuum was these three lines written on a palm leaf:

“This is the sum of all science—Perhaps.”

“This is the sum of all morality—Love that which is good, and practice it.

“This is the sum of all creeds—Believe what is true, and do not tell all you believe.”—Selected.