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Some want books and teachers that will save them the trouble of study.
And there are none such. It would be a pity if there were. They would do
no good, but harm. Nothing strengthens and develops the mind like labor.
But if you had the best books possible they would not enable you to
acquire much useful knowledge, without close study, and vigorous mental
effort.
I learned Greek with the worst Greek Grammar I ever saw; but when I had
learned the language tolerably, I found one of the best Greek Grammars
in the world, and went rapidly through it, and found that it had little
to add to the information I had gained already from the poorer one.
And it is the same with regard to books on God, religion, and duty.
Books with numbers of defects,--with defects of style, defects of
arrangement, and even defects in matter, may teach you many useful
lessons, if you read and study them properly; and the best books on
earth will not teach you much if you read them carelessly.
A great deal, almost every thing, depends on the spirit or the object
with which a man reads a good book. You may read the best books to
little profit, and you may get great good from very inferior ones.
The Bible is the best religious and moral book on earth; it is, in its
most imperfect translations, able to make men wise, and good, and
useful, and happy to the last degree, if they will read and study it
properly.
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