Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded

The following is an extract from a letter. “As one feeling much indebted to the good influence of books lent, allow me to say that believers might find ‘a more excellent way’ if, in a wise and loving manner, they lent their own books to those who are weak and uninstructed. I can but think of a dear Christian family at whose home my sister and I have often been taught the value and meaning of God’s blessed Word, and of the exceeding kindness with which, on leaving, we have often been loaded with reading, which, at home, deepened the impression of what we had heard. Books we have wished to read and were unable to purchase, or those we had never known of till introduced to them by those dear friends who acted in this as though they counted not the things they possessed their own. Indeed, God has so blessed such reading to us that it has taken away the taste for much that we used to find great pleasure in.”

“Even if a believer have but little means and yet wishes to help others in this way, it is wonderful how the Lord opens ways of doing so, for if everything is brought to the Lord, ‘There is much food in the tillage of the poor’ for others as well as for themselves, and ‘if the eye be single, the whole body shall be full of light.’ Perhaps the Lord may guide you to make some suggestion on the subject, for it is a way of serving the Master open to many. It pains my heart to see believers with well stored bookshelves unused for the Lord. I believe this is one way in which He is wounded in the house of His friends.”

We heartily commend the foregoing weighty words to the attention of our readers. May we all seek grace to act on them! It will, perhaps, be said that there is another side of the question to be considered. No doubt there is. Books, when lent, are often not returned at all or returned so soiled and mutilated as to be unfit to be seen. Hence, there is a word for the borrower as well as for the lender. Surely if grace should rule the conduct of the lender, righteousness at least should rule the conduct of the borrower. Still, fully admitting the carelessness of many who get the loan of books, we should be very sorry indeed if this admission were allowed to blunt the edge of the most excellent suggestion of our correspondent.