All books grow homilies by time; they are Temples, at once, and Landmarks. In them, we Who _but_ for them, upon that inch of ground We call 'THE PRESENT', from the cell could see. No daylight trembling on the dungeon bar, Turn, as we list, the globe's great axle round! And feel the Near less household than the Far! Traverse all space, and number every star. There is no Past, so long as Books shall live! A disinterred Pompeii wakes again For him who seeks you well; lost cities give Up their untarnished wonders, and the reign Of Jove revives and Saturn:--at our will Rise dome and tower on Delphi's sacred hill; Bloom Cimon's trees in Academe;--along Leucadia's headland, sighs the Lesbian's song; With Egypt's Queen once more we sail the Nile, And learn how worlds are bartered for a smile:-- Rise up, ye walls, with gardens blooming o'er, Ope but that page--lo, Babylon once more! V Ye make the Past our heritage and home: And is this all? No; by each prophet sage-- No; by the herald souls that Greece and Rome Sent forth, like hymns, to greet the Morning Star That rose on Bethlehem--by thy golden page, Melodious Plato--by thy solemn dreams, World-wearied Tully!--and, above ye all, By THIS, the Everlasting Monument Of God to mortals, on whose front the beams Flash glory-breathing day--our lights ye are To the dark Bourne beyond; in you are sent The types of Truths whose life is The TO-COME; In you soars up the Adam from the fall; In you the FUTURE as the PAST is given-- Even in our death ye bid us hail our birth;-- Unfold these pages, and behold the Heaven, Without one gravestone left upon the Earth. E. G. E. L. BULWER-LYTTON, LORD LYTTON. USEFUL AND MIGHTY THINGS Except a living man, there is nothing more wonderful than a book!--a message to us from the dead--from human souls whom we never saw, who lived, perhaps, thousands of miles away; and yet these, on those little sheets of paper, speak to us, amuse us, vivify us, teach us, comfort us, open their hearts to us as brothers.... I say we ought to reverence books, to look at them as useful and mighty things. If they are good and true, whether they are about religion or politics, farming, trade, or medicine, they are the message of Christ, the maker of all things, the teacher of all truth, which He has put into the heart of some man to speak, that he may tell us what is good for our spirits, for our bodies, and for our country.--C. KINGSLEY. _Village Sermons: On Books._ AN EXTRAORDINARY DELIGHT TO STUDY