Moses, the gentlest of men, teaches us to make bookcases most
neatly, wherein they may be protected from any injury: Take, he
says, this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of
the covenant of the Lord your God. O fitting place and
appropriate for a library, which was made of imperishable
shittim-wood, and was all covered within and without with gold!
But the Saviour also has warned us by His example against all
unbecoming carelessness in the handling of books, as we read in
S. Luke. For when He had read the scriptural prophecy of
Himself in the book that was delivered to Him, He did not give it
again to the minister, until He had closed it with his own most
sacred hands. By which students are most clearly taught that in
the care of books the merest trifles ought not to be neglected.
CHAPTER XVIII
SHOWETH THAT WE HAVE COLLECTED SO GREAT STORE OF BOOKS FOR THE
COMMON BENEFIT OF SCHOLARS AND NOT ONLY FOR OUR OWN PLEASURE
Nothing in human affairs is more unjust than that those things
which are most righteously done, should be perverted by the
slanders of malicious men, and that one should bear the reproach
of sin where he has rather deserved the hope of honour. Many
things are done with singleness of eye, the right hand knoweth
not what the left hand doth, the lump is uncorrupted by leaven,
nor is the garment woven of wool and linen; and yet by the
trickery of perverse men a pious work is mendaciously transformed
into some monstrous act.
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