Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1889-07-06
The Choice of Books.
Faith and w Orks.

Faith and Works.
When you are hungry and sit down
at public table, you scan the bill of
fare for the dishes suited to your
needs. The same rule applies to
all sensible people-assimilation and
adaptability. 1t is so, also, in your
choice of dress. Where can you find
the woman who will not seek for the
new garment suited in some meas.
ure to her form and features? May |
ask, DO you expend the same care
and thought in feeding and clothing
the mind?
You all read, and books of many
kinds are within reach-mOre, in
deed, than you can master in life
time. How, then, do you make a
choice? Do yon really know how to
choose?
do not forget that busy people
and busy brains require relaxation
rather than severe thought. in the
"leisure-hour." With a weary body
the mind is in sympathy and needs
refreshment rather than toll, but
listless habits of life and listless and
lazy habits Of reading creep in so
readily where opportunities are
favorable, that it is to warn you
against such, rather than to propose
any positive regimen, that this word
is written. For how can one dictate
to another exactly what is best for
her? Yet we may help one another
to good choice, just as nurse
brings to the patient dainty dish to
overcome the vanished appetite. A
list of the BEST One Hundred Books"
is not what you want, so you look
in vain for one here but choose, my
young friends, that which calls out
the best in you, that which suggests
good and not evil, that which clears
the mental vision and that which
strengthens right resolve. There is
wickedness enough-evil passion and
impure thought-in the world, for
sooth but we do not need to go to the
books to find it. AS you value your
sweet womanhood and as you value
your high, immortal hopes, do not
trihe with bad book-with that
which appeals even remotely to I'M
holy impulse. The book that you
do not wish the little sister or the
dear mother to see is not safe book
for you. This, 1 need not to write,
something within tells you, unless
the moral sense be blunted. Let
your books be to you what the bright
sunshine and the breezy air and the
singing of birds and the voice and
breath of Nature are to the tired
body and the tired mind-what
wholesome, nourishing food and
drink are to weary physical energies.
Books-good books-are to be count
ed among the divine gifts.
Above all, read and study the great
Author. Do you remember Sir
Walter SCOTS dying words to his
son-in-law, Lockhart? "Bring the
book. "-"What book ?"-"Need you
ask? There is but one." Such was
the testimony of one whose books
have entranced thousands, whose
charm will last while literature en-
dures. l conclude, dear girls, with
this thought of the foremost o.
novelists: "There is but one book
that embodies all wisdom, love, and
truth. Other books are good or bat
as they approach or fall away from
its standard. Seek, then, "the sin
cere milk of the word" that YOU
souls may grow beautiful as YOU
: bodies. How many of you will
, make a beginning by taking "a verse
; a day." feeding on it through thu
passing moments and storing it il
the treasure-house ofmemOry? AnC
so, in after years, when bonny brown
T hairs are faded, and the golden arr
gray, and "desire fails" and thu
"good things of life" have beer
tasted and refuse to satisfy, Cod
own word shall still prove "sweete
than honey" and his promises, shin
ing through the dark, shall, starlike
point TO the eternal shore.