It would seem unnecessary here to mention the importance of being familiar with the Scriptures and the special truths for this time. This, above all other things, is what this nation, with its four hundred and twenty-six million inhabitants, is sadly waiting for; and this is the sword of the missionary. A good student of the Scriptures will soon become familiar with the Chinese Bible. We can not speak too highly of memorizing Scripture, since it will educate the mind for memorizing this language. Further, since the Bible is the text used in the Chinese course of study, having the English text in mind is a great help toward learning the meaning of certain terms, and also of translating. If time should permit, the study of Greek will prove valuable, as in many instances the Greek construction and order simulates the Chinese. Further, owing to the poor translation of the Chinese Bible, it is often convenient to refer to the original. Young’s Concordance will serve the needs of a missionary not having a thorough knowledge of the Greek.
With gratitude we have noticed that the industrial branches are being made a part of the course of study in our schools. Just such a preparation is needed for the work in the primitive and Oriental mission fields. It must be borne in mind that the Chinese are far ahead of some foreign lands in agriculture. A missionary was quite surprised upon asking an old Chinaman why he was covering a pumpkin vine with dirt, to hear the reply that the vine would take root, and the roots would serve as feeders. From a bare red soil which has no rest from year to year, and from which every straw is gathered for fuel, they succeed in raising two good crops a year. Carpentering, bricklaying, tinning, and other industries have their place, and the missionary finds a knowledge of these subjects very convenient when having to overhaul a Chinese house, so that it will be suitable for foreigners, or in taking measurements for furniture, or in fixing an apparatus for a shower-bath, etc.
In coming to a tropical climate like this, a good general knowledge of physiology and personal hygiene is of inestimable value. Although not all of this empire lies in the tropical belt, still the tropical diseases prevail in most parts. However, we believe that in most cases arrangements could be made whereby a knowledge of the care necessary to fortify one’s self against the climatic conditions can be secured after reaching the field, as well as how to deal with the most common ailments with which the people of China are afflicted. At present24the sick are receiving treatment at all our mission stations. Here in a land without foreign physicians except in the port cities and a few mission centers, the sick suffering from simple ailments can often be cured or greatly relieved by one who has had opportunity to spend a few weeks at one of our regular medical dispensaries. Many lives are saved by simply knowing how to use the stomach-pump, since people are constantly taking crude opium to commit suicide. In thus being able to minister to their physical needs, confidence is secured, and afterward an opportunity to reach them with the life-saving truth.
Foreign foods are very expensive here; and since China affords a large variety of food material, such as wheat, peanuts, rice, vegetable oil, sweet potatoes, a few varieties of beans, some good varieties of vegetables and tubers; fruits, such as pears, peaches, cherries, grapes, persimmons, and plums, one can get along very well without many foreign foods. A knowledge of the principles of cooking, and of the combination of food materials, will greatly assist the worker in making his allowance see him through. One thing that can be studied here better than any other place in the world is economy. It is claimed that as many Chinese could live on what is wasted in America as there are inhabitants there, and we can see no reason to doubt the statement.
To those who may have finished their school work some years previously, and desire to take some further preparation before coming to China, we would say that under ordinary circumstances, we would not consider it wise to spend a long time in preparation in the home land; for in most cases new workers will be associated with another worker for some time, and at least the first two years will be spent on language study, during which time many practical points may be picked up with reference to treatments and mission methods. The preparation of some of the great missionaries of the Bible, and the way they were able to meet emergencies, will furnish interesting study for those coming here, and there is a marked similarity between present existing conditions in China and those with which the apostles met.
From the record concerning the apostle Paul’s method of training young men as missionaries, we learn that they accompanied him on his missionary tours, and he mentions not a few who received their training in this way. On this method of education we have the following counsel: “Young men should be qualifying themselves by becoming familiar with other languages, that God may use them as mediums to communicate his saving truth to those of other nations. These young men may obtain a knowledge of other languages even while engaged in laboring for sinners. If they are economical of their time, they can be improving their minds; and if women who have borne but little responsibility would devote themselves to God, they could qualify themselves for usefulness by studying and becoming familiar with other languages. They could devote themselves to the work of translating.”—“Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. III, page 204. “Many of the barren, unworked fields must be entered by beginners. The brightness of the Saviour’s view of the world will inspire confidence in many workers, who, if they begin in humility and put their hearts into the work, will be found to be the right men for the time and place.”—Id., Vol. VII, page 271.
These statements emphasize the fact that the training of missionaries can, in a large part at least, be best secured in the mission field.
H. W. MILLER, M. D.
Young Men to the Front
By John Lørke
“Not, by the large meetings, fine speeches, and much excitement are great things done; O, no, but by earnest, quiet work, as the worker is not influenced by his success, but realizes that God’s presence is with him.”
These were the words that the great missionary, Livingstone, spoke before a large congregation in England, while he took a much-needed rest. He returned after that to Africa, and true to the above-mentioned principles, he labored there until his death.
Such missionaries we can use also in this country, Brazil, where spiritual darkness reigns. In the States two years ago, I saw at our camp-meetings and in our schools a large number of intelligent young people, of whom we could use many in Brazil. Workers are needed very much.
Elder Spies, for instance, has charge of the work in the northern part of Brazil. He is the only ordained minister in his field. He has to look after the work in the States of Rio, Espírito Santo, Minas Geraes, and Bahia. Think of it!—one man for four States as large as some of the States in America.
By sending out our good missionary paper, O Arauto da Verdade, an interest sprang up in the States of Para and Bahia. In the latter State people began to keep the Sabbath without ever having seen a minister. They are calling for a minister, and wish to be baptized. Elder Spies intends to go, but the work is pressing on all sides.
In Sao Paulo our only minister is Elder Hoelzle. He is also the editor of our Portuguese paper. He needs canvassers, Bible workers, and ministers.
Elder Ehlers has charge of the work in the States of Parana and Santa Catharina. He is the only ordained minister in his field, and is anxious to get more laborers, because the work demands it. Even in the State of Gogaz, away in the interior, an interest has developed. We can truly say, we need our young people who are studying in our schools to come over and help us proclaim the third angel’s message in our large country of Brazil.
If you take your map and look up the States I have mentioned, you will see in how few States we have begun to work so far. Our laborers who have worked here for years under privations, trials, and difficulties are growing old. Our young people must come to the front, step into the ranks, lift up the banner of truth, and go forward under the great Captain, our beloved Saviour. Where are the young people in our schools who will say, ‘Here am I, Lord; send me’? I hope many who read this will speak these words. And while I write these lines, I pray to God to put the desire into many hearts to consecrate themselves to the work in foreign lands.
But that you, my dear brother and sister, may not be deceived, I will try to explain what is required of one who wishes to come, and will tell of some of the difficulties he is going to meet. Many a young man is ready to go to foreign lands when he sees how missionaries who have returned for a needed rest are honored and praised. But if this is the only reason for wishing to be a missionary, it has no worth whatever.
When you come into such a strange country, you will find that your journey has not been a pleasure trip. You will have to fight, yes, to fight hard every day with the devil, who will do his utmost to hinder the beginning of our work in new territory. You will have to grapple with peculiar difficulties, the darkness of superstition, and with diseases resulting from exposures and a different climate. You find few railroads. The journeying is done on mule or horseback through uninhabited districts. Sometimes you suffer hunger and thirst. Bad water may bring on sickness. Tropical rains may soak you. You may have to cross rivers on boats or by swimming. Such experiences one has who labors in the interior. After you get to your field, a Catholic priest may stir up his people and seek to drive you out, or even kill you. This has happened. Then it takes nerve and faith. The darkness of superstition is great. You have to learn to adapt yourself to some of the customs of the people and to the peculiar conditions of the country. You have to press forward in faith, overcoming everything by faith in the Lord Jesus. You will weep and pray often. But how great is your joy when you finally see precious souls rejoicing in the truth as a result of your labor. This pays for all you have suffered.
Why have I written the above? To discourage you after I have encouraged you to come over and help us? O no, indeed! Why, then?—To make you see that it takes a whole and true man to be a missionary.
JOHN LØRKE.
(To be concluded)
ASpeedy Consummation
By John D. Gillatt
CONFUCIAN HALL, PEKING, CHINA
“The Lord God of heaven will not supply the deficiencies that result from mental and spiritual indolence. When the human agents shall exercise their faculties to acquire knowledge, to become deep-thinking men, . . . then even judges and kings will be brought to acknowledge, in the courts of justice, in parliaments and councils, that the God who made heaven and earth is the author of Christianity . . . who instituted the seventh-day Sabbath.”—Special Testimony.
With the gospel of a soon-coming Saviour as our message, the whole world as our field, and this generation as our only time of work, it behooves us as a people to know the best and quickest means of accomplishing our God-given duty. What shall be the active force to give the advent message to the world in this generation?—Undoubtedly the Spirit of God, in rich measure resting upon a consecrated band of workers. However, the Holy Spirit does not take up his abode indiscriminately in any individual. They that bear the vessels of the Lord must be clean—sanctified.
When the events referred to in the above-quoted Testimony shall occur, it will be essential for us to recall the words of our Saviour: “It shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh through you.” This Spirit works in a systematized manner, and the success of its efforts through an individual is measured by the proportion of co-operation which that individual affords. The Holy Spirit will bring to “remembrance” the sacred lessons of Scripture.
Divinity, in the great and all-glorious work of salvation, cloaks itself in humanity. Then how necessary that the wisdom of the God who fashioned nature, who rules in the history of nations, and who inspired the sacred volume, should not be hidden by our ignorance concerning these objects. Stated otherwise, how important as a power speedily to close this work and usher us into glory is education (Prov. 4:7)—not in “science falsely so-called,” but in true science consecrated by a life harmonious with the will of the Propounder of all the facts of science. A man with a dull instrument may accomplish his task; but, O, how slowly and laboriously! Time occupied in sharpening the blade is never time lost. Eccl. 10:10. “God works for people in spite of their ignorance. . . . But those who have education can accomplish a much more extensive work in bringing souls to the knowledge of the truth than can those who are uneducated.”—Special Testimony.
While all are commanded to re-echo the cry, “Come,” yet upon our young especially rests the burden of the speedy and successful accomplishment of this work. “We need young men and women who have a high intellectual culture in order that they may do the best work for the Lord.” “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth.” How often we have understood this exhortation as calling merely for an acknowledgement of a belief in God. True, it is designed to rouse us to a recognition of our duty to God, for we read further, “Fear God, and keep his commandments.” These commandments, however, also teach us our duty to our fellow men—a duty which is not simply negative, but also positive, making us debtors to all men, owing to them the glad tidings of the kingdom.
If all our youth would remember Christ, the one by whom creation was effected; if they would behold him taking his farewell of the celestial home in glory and coming to this, the darkest spot in the universe as the great missionary Exemplar, would they not by beholding become “changed into the same image”? Would they not gladly surrender home comforts and prepare immediately for successful service even in the darkest portions of the earth? What a powerful corps would soon be added to the militant host! How rapidly the strongest forts of the enemy would fall before the united and advancing army! Soon we should see our beloved Jesus. Families separated for a few short years would share in a glad reunion; partings25would be over; we should have joy in the result of our humble efforts, and should be united with the family above to praise our Redeemer throughout eternity.
Young man, young woman, God is calling, ‘Who will go for us?’ Fathers and mothers in Israel, lend your sons and daughters to the Lord as long as they live, and he will richly repay. May the Saviour now behold us ‘hasting the coming of the day of God.’ 2 Peter 3:12, margin.
JOHN D. GILLATT.
The School for the Times
By M. BESSIE DEGRAW
I HAVE thought for some time that if some of our energetic young people—readers of the REVIEW—could know of some things going on in neighboring States, it would awaken a desire in their hearts to enter quickly upon a work to which the Lord is calling them.
I have been collecting some interesting stories—true stories—of sacrifice and devotion which I am pleased to be able to give you. The first is the account of the starting of an industrial school in Rabun County, Georgia, described as “lying in the heart of the illiterate mountain region, and occupying a strategic position in this great field. Situated in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains, in the extreme northeastern corner of Georgia, it has been, until the advent of a railroad, one of the most isolated and inaccessible counties in all the Southern mountain region. In its isolated position all the conditions have prevailed peculiar to the remote mountain community. It presents the mountain problem in all its phases—educational, social, moral, religious, and economic.”
The story of this industrial school in Rabun County, Georgia, is given by Andrew J. Ritchie, its founder and superintendent, himself a native of this same county and a Harvard graduate.
How the School Was Established
Professor Ritchie says: “In August, 1902, while on a visit to the county during my vacation as teacher at Baylor University, Texas, I saw the great need of not only a strong school in the county, but of a school that would provide something more than the old education of the text-books. I noticed that the brightest boys were leaving the county, and that the girls, as a rule, were being left without education, and in the midst of surroundings in which their social condition was helpless and hopeless. I thought how much it would mean if there could be a school in which these boys and girls could be educated at home and trained in profitable occupations, so that they would remain in the county and marry and make homes and elevate the standards of life and society in their communities.”
Mr. Ritchie traveled on horseback, visiting nearly every family in the county, and soliciting means and help. When the time came to build, having very little money in hand, “some brought their teams and made the excavations for the basement story, others quarried and hauled the stone, still others cut and hauled the logs to the sawmill for the framing, and almost the entire community shared in by hauling the rest of the material over the mountains from the railroad, a distance of fifteen or twenty miles for the round trip, and in this way saved a great deal of money which they were unable to give. Thus the building was constructed as the money and material came in, and with the great gain that, as it grew, the people felt that it was their own, and that as friendly gifts came from the outside, they realized they were doing what they could to help themselves.”
Concerning the plan for school work we read: “The school is planned as an industrial and high school for the surrounding mountain country in which poor boys and girls can support themselves in part by their work, and as a model school for the local community.”
Industrial Education Needed
Professor Ritchie describes the people for whom he is working; and since you and I are called to this work, we want to know the conditions to be met. He says:—
“These isolated mountain people are not only lacking in education, but are lacking in social and economic efficiency. They need not only education which will develop their latent intellect and talent, but also education which will develop their industrial and social activities. They need to learn how to live and how to work, not only to own their homes as most of them do, but to make them more comfortable and wholesome, and to cultivate their mountain farms in a scientific and intensive way. They need to learn the value of time, to acquire skill and efficiency, to cultivate thrift and frugality, and to make the most of their resources. . . .”
“The old education fails to reach the mountain problem because it is not adapted to mountain conditions. The goal which it sets before the mountain boy or girl is too often an escape from the work and environment of the mountain community, and a change to the life of the town or city. The kind of education needed is education which shall have a larger bearing upon the life which the people are to lead. The school through which this education is to be provided must establish a practical connection between education and work. Its course of study must have to do with the industries of the environment. The mountain boy needs to be trained in agriculture, forestry, dairying and animal husbandry, and in handicrafts in wood-work and other industries for which the materials lie at hand unused. The mountain girl needs to be trained in the arts of orderly housekeeping and successful home making, which will combine with the pure mountain air and water, to give these people the physical health which is their birthright.
“The mountain school must also be an evangelizing spiritual and moral force. It must do the work which is not being done in the remote mountain district by the church and the evangelistic preacher. It must set in motion influences which will soften the mountain temper and displace the spirit of feud. It must banish the evil of whisky and its attendant evils of moral and social degradation. It must impart such a breadth and richness of social life as shall make the mountain community an attractive place in which to live.”
Notice, the mountain school must be an evangelizing, spiritual, and moral force. Does that not mean that here is a call for teachers strong in the belief that the gospel must go to the world? Is not this a call to you?
Notice also that the education recommended by this Harvard graduate, this native of the mountains of Rabun County, for the mountain youth is verily the same as that which the Testimonies have long been urging upon us as a people,—an education that fits for every-day life, an education that makes lovers of work, an education based upon soil cultivation.
Are we ready to fill such calls? If so, come, step into the places waiting for you. If not, come, prepare for such work.
I have other stories for you, stories that bear a little later date even than this one, and which come even a little nearer home.
M. BESSIE DEGRAW.
The Parent's Reward
By Clifford G. Howell
TO-DAY as I walked home from the schoolroom, two of my pupils were a little distance in advance of me, walking with their arms around each other; and I thought of the letter I received the other day from their father, who is hundreds of miles away. He said, in part, as follows:—
“It will be seventeen years the twenty-sixth of this month since our home was made happy by a little visitor that came to stay with us. How glad we were to welcome her to our poor home! Years have passed, and the home is still poor; yet I trust to reach a better one by and by, and want that little visitor to come and see us there. O, it does my soul good to hear from your hand, Brother Howell, of those true, Christ-like principles in her that I could see when only a little prattling girl! They were acted out in her willingness to do for others,—never too tired to help her papa with his work if he asked her.
“Before two years had come and gone, another little black-eyed visitor asked to stay in that humble home. She said: ‘I will be company for this one you have. There is not much difference in our ages. It will be so nice for us to be together. Will you be kind enough to give us dollies and toys?’
“You can not realize my anxiety for their future welfare. But the precious thought passes through my mind day after day as I toil along in this dreary old world to earn a few dollars to apply on the education of my children, that I am investing in the bank of heaven. By saving my children, they, in turn, may be educated to help save others.”
As I think of this humble worker, toiling for such a purpose, I am reminded of a few sentences we learned in one of our classes a short time ago:—
“The work of many may appear to be restricted by circumstances; but wherever it is, if performed with faith and diligence, it will be felt to the uttermost parts of the earth. . . . The humblest worker, moved by the Holy Spirit, will touch invisible chords, whose vibrations will ring to the ends of the earth, and make melody through eternal ages.” What a “school of music” is this! I want to take a few terms of lessons myself.
And as I see these girls bending their26efforts to gain an education, and becoming more earnest, thoughtful, and cheerful, I feel that the prayers of their father are being answered, and his labors for them rewarded. This great and glorious message that has called us out of the world, is to “turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers.”
CLIFFORD G. HOWELL.
Principles and Methods
By A. W. SPAULDING
A Lesson Hard to Learn
ORIGINALLY our homes were meant to be schools, sanitariums, and asylums. We were to train our children, and others’ children who should come to us; to receive the fatherless, the sick, and the poor; to shelter, heal, and help them. But, with some noble exceptions, homes have failed in the fulfilment of these their duties.
In the history of our message, the early failure of homes to do this work made evident the necessity for its being done by other means, if our mission was really to be accomplished. Then men and women who had such a love for any of these principles as to wish to put them into practise were associated in groups for the purpose of doing it.
They were meant still to work for individuals, to work for their salvation, as it was possible to do in the home. That was to be their sole purpose and work—to save souls; not merely to give facts, graduate students; to give treatments, make cures; to put out books, make money. But when, for the sake of greater material results, they brought in more members than they could give personal attention to, spiritually, intellectually, and physically, just as the home is intended to do, and by that course were forced to trust in system and routine, then the missionary spirit, the parental spirit, declined, and both overseers and underlings drifted into worldliness—in the printing houses into commercialism, in the sanitariums into strivings for fame, in the school into devotion to form and careers.
Thus, as the home plan and condition disappeared from our institutions and the family spirit declined, their real work naturally was neglected, and the outputs of the institutions alone occupied our people’s minds. Then we ceased to work so much for the salvation of individuals, and endeavored to get results from working with the masses. Our routine work drove us, our multitudinous responsibilities distracted us, and we trusted to the general atmosphere to work out the salvation of our charges. This condition was speedily reached, by the congestion of our institutions with employees, helpers, and students.
To speak specifically of the school, we created this condition by making the class the principal medium of communication between teacher and students, and by making our school homes dormitories, clubs. Now the purpose of our schools is to make character, and in the formation of character, class-room work should count for only its due importance. What does count is the intimate association between the trainers and those to be trained. Thus work in the field, in the shop, and in the home, must be shared by teachers and students, as instructors and learners, if the school is to do its real work—not alone as instructors and as learners of just how to do the task which their hands are doing, but as instructors and learners of the spirit in which it is to be done, of the manner of its doing, and the relation of its doing to the whole life.
But this personal contact can be had only when the students working with the teacher are few enough so that each may receive the personal impress of the teacher’s character. In other words, the school, in its plans for the training of students, must conform to the plan of the home in the relative number of students, as well as in work. Just as much is there need of this in the school home. The proprieties and niceties of social relations can be thoroughly taught only by intimate companionship, and this close companionship can be had only when the teacher has not too many under his charge. This argues the need of every teacher’s being as far as possible in home relations with his students, and of a restriction of the number of students.
Without this condition, we work, not for the individual, but for the mass; we become, not fathers and mothers, but taskmasters; we trust, not to personal communion, but to the general atmosphere of good, for the salvation of our charges. And this last condition is what we commonly find.
If we look for the results of this training en masse, what do we find?—Children with vague and misty notions of truth, young people wishful for righteousness, but too weak to stand for principle; creatures, therefore, who hold a half knowledge of the truth, and, through failure to practise it, only a half knowledge. If you are thoroughly acquainted with your young people, count the number of them who obey the laws of health, who eat, sleep, breathe, bathe, exercise, as they are preached at to do; who hold in practise, from a sturdy sense of Christian principle, the laws and courtesies of social life; who are versed in the lore of the Bible through a practise of its precepts, or who know even the ten commandments. Investigation will astonish.
Emotionalism can never take the place of knowledge. The efforts of the orator before the congregation, the enthusiasm of the teacher before his class, will result in nothing more than a temporary stirring of dry bones, until by daily association with Christian leaders the young have been brought to know by practise the truths we hold. This can be done only by an adoption of home methods, by a return to individual effort and an abandonment of trust in work upon the mass.
All earnest teachers have tried, it is true, to give their lives in personal effort for their students, but the massing of too many to allow of the operation of home methods, prevents the complete success of their efforts. Still we place our trust in the gathering of great numbers into the schools, as if their walls enclosed manufactories of righteousness; still we boast of great attendances—the very thing which will prevent the doing of our real work.
In view of these facts, which the student of the Testimonies and of pedagogic principles knows, do we not see that these conditions have been rebuked by calamity, and is not such calamity a call to the adoption of correct principles? We at Bethel have passed through such trouble; and looking for light,—we trust humbly and teachably,—have seen light, not suddenly revealed, but added to what had already been seen.
It is a lesson hard to learn, for the customs of generations are not easily abandoned in mind or practise. Yet the call for small institutions, the exhortations against centralization and crowding, the appeals for personal piety and personal work among teachers and students, God has clearly made to us for years. When his word has no effect, his hand becomes heavy.
A. W. SPAULDING.
Discipline
By Lottie E. Farrell
WEBSTER defines discipline as follows: (1) the treatment suited to a disciple, or learner; (2) development of the faculties by instruction and exercise; (3) training to act in accordance with established rules or laws.
To discipline, then, is so to educate or train that there will be a harmonious development of the physical, mental, and spiritual powers in the disciple, or learner, that will cause him to walk in the ways of God.
The only perfectly disciplined life of which we have any record is that of our Saviour. We find that his early years were spent in useful work, the study of the works and Word of God, and communion with him in prayer. We read that “in his industrious life there were no idle moments to invite temptation.” Satan finds it impossible to ensnare the soul whose every energy is employed in service for God.
Applying these principles to the school-room, we shall find the daily program so arranged that the spiritual, mental, and physical development of each child goes on harmoniously. The periods for mental work will not be too long, and will be followed by industrial work, which will be a pleasing and helpful change to the pupil, leading him to love to work with his hands. Where this plan is successfully carried out, there will be very little cause for insubordination, and this part of discipline will not be such a perplexing question as it has been in the past.
But such cases will arise; and how shall they be met? We are told that the greatest wrong we can do a pupil is to allow him to become fastened in the bondage of an evil habit. The first thing, then, is to enlist his will for the correction of the evil. Just how this may be done will depend upon the disposition of the child; and the teacher, having studied the disposition of his pupils, will be able, with the help of the Lord, to know how it may be done. But it should be made plain that the government of God knows no compromise with evil, and for this reason disobedience can not be tolerated in the school. Always remember that if we as teachers have the well-being of our pupils at heart, we shall not compromise with wrong-doing. It might seem the easier way sometimes, but when we remember that their eternal happiness is at stake in the decisions made, it assumes another aspect. The Lord has said that “it is not love, but sentimentalism that palters with wrong-doing, seeks by coaxing or bribes to secure compliance, and finally accepts some substitute in the place of the thing27required.” Then let us so labor in all matters of discipline that the children may be fitted to dwell with the redeemed throughout eternity.
LOTTIE E. FARRELL.
Value of Good Reading
By ETHEL J. SANDERSON.
ACQUAINTANCES are formed by an exchange of thoughts, either written or spoken. We may never see a person, but he may become in a certain sense our friend, by our reading what he has written. Therefore as cautiously as we choose our friends, should we select the books which we read.
God reveals himself to man through the Word, through nature, and through his influence on the inner consciousness of man. Some hearts are more in tune with the pulsations of the eternal heart of love than are others. Then, are not the writings of those men the ones we should most read and study?
Standard literature is that literature which has stood the test of ages, having been handed down from generation to generation. It supplies the needs of both rich and poor, and is of interest to each class. It does not address any one sect or party, but is a communication from man to man. This is because the quality of universality is present. This characteristic gives to a literary production a world-wide scope, reaching as far as does the language in which it is written. It touches the innermost feelings of man. The Bible has universality to a fuller extent than any other book, and any literary production which does not have this quality is short lived.
There are two kinds of literature, which we may designate as knowledge literature and power literature. The former instructs, while the latter arouses.
Literature includes anything of a technical nature in knowledge or science. All text-books, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and the like, would come under this head. It is a good thing to store the mind well with facts; but unless the morals of a man are stirred, he never can arouse any one else to action.
Power literature is that kind which gives renewed energy to one. It works most powerfully upon the morals of a man, showing him the relation he bears to God and all mankind. Our hand and judgment become developed only by use. Therefore the best literature for one's moral faculties is that which arouses them to action. A book that can not impart serviceable knowledge should not be read.
By the reading of good literature we become acquainted with the best thoughts of the best writers; we have revealed to us the highest ideals and noblest motives which prevailed during the successive periods of the nation's growth. And every production is bound to leave its impression upon us. If it has increased our love for God, given us a warmer sympathy for all mankind, a deeper interest in the created works of God, a keener realization of our obligations to God and mankind, a higher gratitude for the mercies surrounding us, and a greater desire to have a part in the work of our Master, we may know that it has been of great use to us.
Perhaps a still better test is the permanent value the production is to us. But the all-important question to ask is, Of what use will this be to me throughout eternity? The more love for God we have here, the more shall we love God in heaven; the more we see in nature here, the more shall we appreciate our heavenly surroundings. Therefore those books which bring these results will be of the most service.
The education which fits us for a successful life in this world is not to be neglected; but of more worth is the education which prepares us for service in our Master's cause. The one is as much higher than the other as heaven is higher than the earth.
