Sales Promotion of Books
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Books for Hospitals, Nursing Homes, and Orphanages—
Please find out what is needed in the patients’ library, and purchase the
necessary volumes at my expense, as I desire to make a gift of them
to the Sanitarium. I would wish these books for the patients’ library
to be in the best binding. Also, find out whether there is a set of my
books in the helpers’ library. If not, please buy a set for it, too. The
binding of this set need not be the most expensive. Use your judgment
in regard to this matter.
I should also like you to find out whether the Old People’s Home
and the Orphans’ Home are supplied with sets of my books. If not,
please buy for them what may be needed, including both the large and
the small books. I desire to make these gifts to these needy places.—
Letter 96, 1903
.
Books as Christmas Gifts—While urging upon all the duty of
first bringing their offerings to God, I would not wholly condemn the
practice of making Christmas and New Year’s gifts to our friends. It is
right to bestow upon one another tokens of love and remembrance if
we do not in this forget God, our best Friend. We should make our gifts
such as will prove a real benefit to the receiver. I would recommend
such books as will be an aid in understanding the Word of God, or
that will increase our love for its precepts. Provide something to be
read during these long winter evenings. For those who can procure it,
D’Aubigne’s History of the Reformation will be both interesting and
profitable. From this work we may gain some knowledge of what has
been accomplished in the past in the great work of reform. We can
see how God poured light into the minds of those who searched His
Word, how much the men ordained and sent forth by Him were willing
to suffer for the truth’s sake, and how hard it is for the great mass of
mankind to renounce their errors and to receive and obey the teachings
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of the Scriptures. During the winter evenings, when our children were
young, we read from this history with the deepest interest. We made
it a practice to read instructive and interesting books with the Bible,
in the family circle, and our children were always happy as we thus
entertained them. Thus we prevented a restless desire to be out in
the street with young companions, and at the same time cultivated in
them a taste for solid reading.—
The Review and Herald, December
26, 1882
.
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