there is about a comrade who can understand what you say, and who can swap ideas with you "even Steven!" It cannot be done without books.
Considering the vast importance of learning in saving labor and reducing the actual cost of existence, there has been little growth in the business of bookmaking compared with what there should have been. The trade in books in America is large, because the country is large. Everything is large here. Comparatively, however, it probably sinks below fishing for mackerel as an industry. As it is now, a shockingly large portion of the industry such as it is is given over to costly bindings. It does not seem that the people, even when they first had books, cared so much for the privilege of reading as they did for a gaudy covering to the volume, on which they could expend a barbaric love for ornament. The wise men of those times marveled, just as the wise men marvel nowadays. "Learning hath gained most by those books," says Old Fuller, "by which the printers have lost." Our follies in the way of "books that are all binding" are almost microscopically small when put beside those of the olden times, when, one would think the art of printing, being new, would have been best appreciated, for surely the grass looks the greenest to us in the spring! Let us do something more than
MAKE JEWELRY OUT OF THE ART OF GUTTENBERG.
"A book may be as great a thing as a battle," said Disraeli, and he meant by that a decisive battle. Now there are sometimes very decisive battles. A Turk once came up against the walls of Vienna and the walls of Tours, in France, and, if he had got through, you and I would to-day, so the scholars say, be "good Mussulmans," instead of Christians, living in freedom and decency. "When a book," says Bruyere, "raises your spirits, and inspires you with noble and courageous feelings, seek for no other rule to judge the work by; it is good, and made by a good workman." The books you buy should have large clear type. They are to be
YOUR COMPANIONS THROUGH LIFE.
Your eyes will not be so bright in their old age. The volumes should not be bulky—that is, for true, practical use. "Great books," says Clulow, "like large skulls, have often the least brains." "Books," says Dr. Johnson, "that you may carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are the most useful, after all." There is no objection to a costly and beautifully-bound Bible, out of which you may read each day with added veneration, but your sons and daughters should have pocket copies. From these modest little volumes, the marvels of language and thought may be gathered without seeming effort.
Do not be afraid you are spending too much money on reading. If you read each book as you buy it, you cannot buy too many—that is, if you are an honorable man, earning your living in the world, and not sponging it off some one else. Read your book slowly, above all things. Read it as you would ride in your boat on the waters, looking down at the pebbles, the fishes, the grasses, and the roots of the pond-lilies which, being of God's creation like yourself, send a responsive thrill of acquaintance through your heart as you float above them. You can, at best, but glide over a book. Even the writer has been but a passing observer of a few of its truths. It is
THE RECORD OF THE CENTURIES.
Respect it. "My latest passion will be for books," said Frederick the Great, in his old age. He had hardly looked down into the waters until he got nearly to the other shore. Gibbon declared that a taste for books was the pleasure and glory of his life; and Carlyle, who, it is supposed, was better acquainted with books than any man who has yet lived, declared that of all man could do or make here below, by far the most momentous, wonderful, and worthy were the things we call books.
HELP OTHERS.