f purest and noblest nature--men, too,
it may be, who have lived, thought, and written under circumstances as
depressing as those in which he lives and works. So there may be some
one who regretfully feels that in Nature there is nothing which gives to
him, as to others, the keenest pleasure, refreshing him when wearied,
encouraging him when downcast. Who sees nothing in the skies save signs
of the coming storm, nothing in the trees or flowers, the rivers or the
hills, save something relating to his material comfort or discomfort.
The best use to which this man could put a library and his reading hours
might be to study the works of the great interpreters of nature, as
White of Selborne, Ruskin, or Emerson. And if they should open his eyes
so that he can look "through Nature up to Nature's God," his gain is
immeasurable.

Now, in neither of these instances is the increase of knowledge the aim
set before the reader, but the development of some dwarfed faculty whose
growth is necessary to the leading of a noble life. But where the
increase of knowledge is the direct end sought, the value of the
knowledge in itself must not be that alone which decides one in the
choice of books, or incites him to reading, but the use to which it can
and ought to be put. An employer of labor, for instance, one who is
immediately responsible for the welfare of a large number of workmen,
cannot, with any true conception of his duty as a master, devote his
time for reading to acquiring a knowledge of history, science, or
literature, if he know nothing of the principles underlying the
relations of capital to labor, if he is ignorant of the dangers, the
temptations, the needs and rights of his workpeople. However
well-informed on other subjects, he has read to far less advantage than
if his books had been chosen with a direct purpose to fit him to do his
duty as a master. So many a parent ought, for a time at least, to read
with a view wholly to prepare himself for the wise moral and mental
training of his children. And on the other hand a man should read the
history of his country, not merely that he may not blush from conscious
ignorance of it, but that, knowing what his heritage of freedom cost to
obtain, he may also come to the conviction that it is not his to enjoy
simply, but it is a sacred trust to be accounted for, however humble his
position. It could not be more humble than Lincoln's, and yet none can
doubt that to the spirit in which