The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1901-03-29

&AorSA ~ ans lAClE RL0oPNAAly VI al
.ure, their faith or their unbelief, their
purity or corruption, their heaven or hell.
.Showme any mans library, great or small.
and sitter examining the books, finding
those with leaves uncut, but displayed for
sake Of the binding, and those worn with
frequent perusal, and without ever seeing
the man or knowing his name, / will tell
you bis likes and his dislikes; his morals,
good or bad or Indifferent; bis qualiica-
ton for business or artistic OF profes-
sional or mechanical life. The best in
dex to any mans character IS the book
he prefers above all others. Oh. b pow
er of atho0k for good or evil
Abraham Lincoln In early life read
Pafne's "'Axe of Reason" and it so in
fluenceu him that he wrote an essay
against Christianity, but afterward some
Christian hooks came into his hands and
gloriously changed his mind and made
him e most ardent friend Of the Bible
and a man of prayer. A letter in Mr..
Lincolx's own handwriting is in my house,
the letter in response to some resolutions
passed by a Methodist conference, say
ing: "In response to your address, al
low me to attest the accuracy Of its his
torical statements, indorse the senti-
ments it expresses and thank you in the
nations name fer the sure promise it
gives. Nobly sustained as the govern
ment has been by all the churches, l
would utter nothing which might in the
least appear inyidions against any. Yet
without this it may fairly De said that
the Methodist Episcopal church, not less
devoted than the best. is by its great
numbers the most important Of all. 1t
is no fault in others that the Methodist
church sends more soldiers to the field,
mere nurses to the hospital and more
prayers to heaven han any. God bless
the Methodist church-bless all the
chuEches-apd blessed be God who in this
our great trial giveth US the churches"
What a great thing it was that the
Christian books which Mr.. Lincoln read
obliterated from his mind the infdel lit
erature. William Carey became a mis-
~sionary By reading "The Voyages of Cap
tain Cook" John Wesley's life was shap-
ed by reading Jeremy Taylor's Holy
Living and Dying" There are books in
your library Ga lying on your parlor table
or secreted in 2ome place by your child
that will decide Cor two worlds, this snd
the next, the character of its reader.
While passing, s. in parenthesis, i al
wise: Read books OF poetry, that the bells
in your soul may be set a-chiming. Resi-
history, that o may know how wrong
doing in time m to defeat and right
eousness to victory. Read books of law.
that you may see that anarchy has no
right in a world so precisely governed
Read books of wit and humoP, that you
may experience the healthfulness OF
laughter. Read books Of religion. tLa;
you may appreciate how small is the YES
tibule of time compared with the palaces
OF eternity.
The influence OF Books.
Through books we sit down and talk
with the mightiest spirits of all the ages
We accompany Teppyson on his spring
time walk as he falls upon his knees in
the meadows, crying to his companion:
"Violets, man, ~violets! Smell them" Or
we ride with Trajan in his triumphal
march, or stand with Godfrey at the tax
ing Of Jerusalem, or with arctic explorer
hear the crash of the icebergs, or are re-
ceiyed with fernando Cortes in the halls
of Montezuma, or watch in the observa
tory as Herschel with his telescope cap
lures another star, or the ink in the ink
horn turns red as blood. and we are at
Marengo and Arbela and Eylau and
Borodino and Leipsic; or we sail with
Hamilcar from Carthage to Palermo, or
we see Galilei fighting for the solar sys-
tenn, and around us gather for converse
ton Aristotle and Plato and Robert
South and Sydney Smith and Locke and
Samuel Rogers and Chaucer and Paul
Richter and Swift and Hazlitt and Leigh
Hunt and Talleyrand and Burke and Ed
WARD Irving, while to make music for US
Handel and Mozart and Mendelssohn
come in, and we watch Columbus land
ing and see John Haryard's legacy of
5000 paid over for the founding of Har-
ward university, and Joshua Reynolds
and David Wilkie and Rembrandt tell us
Of their pictures. Oh, the books. Thank
God for the books, and thanks be to all
the authors! May the inkhorn ever be
under divine inspiration!
When a bad book is printed you do well
to blame the publisher, but most of all
blame the author. The malaria rose from
his inkstand. The poison that caused the
moral Or spiritual death dropped in the
fluid from the tip of his pen. The manu-
facturer of that ink could tell you that it
is made of tannin and salt of iron and
nutgalls and green %vitriol, but many an
author has dipped from his inkstaEa
hypercriticism and malevolence and
SANDER and salaciousness as from a foun
tain of death. But blessed be God for
the authors inkstand in 10000 studies
which are dedicated to pure intelligence.
highest inspiration and grandest pur
pose. They are the inkstands out of
which will be dipped the redemption of
the world. The destroying angels with
their swords seen in Ezekiel's vision will
be finally overcome by the merciful angel
with the writer's inkhorn.
Among the most important are the edi-
torial and r%eportorial inkstands. The
thick ink on the printers roller is diff
ferent from the ink into which the writer
dips his pen and is compounded of lin
seed oil and lampblack and made thick
by boiling or burning. But the editorial
and reportorial pens are responsible for
that which the printers ink roller i'm
presses upon the flying sheets. Where
one man reads 4 book, 5000 men read a
newspaper. What change of opinion in
regard TO the printing press since the
day when the great Addison wrote con
corning it. "One cannot but be sorry that