[23]. III. Nephi 20.
[24]. III. Nephi, chapter 21.
[25]. II. Nephi i: 5-12.
[26]. Ether i: 42.
[27]. III. Nephi 20: 14-20.
[28]. III. Nephi 20: 27, 28.
[29]. III. Nephi xxi: 11-25.
CHAPTER XLIII.
INTERNAL EVIDENCES.—THE SPIRIT OF THE BOOK.
"I can no more remember the books I have read than the meals I have eaten," said Emerson, "but they have made me." In this way the American philosopher recognizes the simple truth that the reading of books has something to do with the making of a man—that they affect the mind. A book has a spirit as distinctly as a painting or of a piece of sculpture has "feeling"—of course I mean a real work of art into which something from the soul of the artist has passed. The best thing about a painting or piece of sculpture is said to be that which cannot be described; so also the best part of a book is the spirit of it, which may not always be describable. And that elusive, mysterious quality we call its spirit may arise from something quite apart from its rhetoric, or logic or diction. It may be even as the voice of God: not in the strong wind, that rends the mountains and breaks in pieces the rocks before the Lord; not in the earthquake nor in the fire; but in the still, small voice which follows the wind and earthquake and fire.[[1]] So with a book: its spirit may owe its existence to its simple truth—to the spirit of truth in them that made it.