I have found it quite interesting lately that I have been reading more and more on the Christian's home library. Just the other day I had been reading up on Charles Spurgeon's library and saw a picture of it online and had commented to my husband that that was what I wanted one day, to have a huge library filled with God honouring books where I could spend hours reading and where my sons could too when they are older, studying from the books of the many great men and women who have gone before us and even some of those from this generation. So imagine my surprise when I saw two of the blogs I subscribe to talking on exactly that subject in the last week. The one obviously being Andrea's homeschool blog on the Chalcedon website and the other being Doug Phillips of Vision Forum. Both these articles have just confirmed my desire to build the library I have spoken of in the years to come, as and when God enables me to do so.
On Thursday this week I decided to take a trip with my boys to the local library as I had decided to look for some books to read to my boys in my bid to cultivate a love of reading in them. I know how difficult it is to find good Christian literature in the UK and so went armed with a list of some classic novels and books for kids that are not Christian as such but which are recommended by Vision Forum (for example Around the World in 80 Days and Gulliver's Travels).
"I arrived at the library brimming with excitement at being able to pick up some of these classic treasures to read to my boys. I mean, surely such classics would HAVE to be in every library. Boy was I wrong. First, I searched in vain through the tiny section of our library allocated to young children and teens, but all I found there were stacks of Harry Potter books, horror stories about all sorts of demonic and scary characters and picture books about fairies and goblins. After giving up there, I moved on to the Children's Reference Section (also very small) out of curiosity as to what they may have there. There, I found two books on Christianity in amongst the other children's reference books on various religions. One of these books was supposedly about the history of Christianity but a quick flip through both these books left my blood running cold and a knot in the pit of stomach at how wrong the depiction was and how detached the authors were.
"Then the thought struck me, 'I am looking in the wrong place! I should be looking under the classics section!' So I spent another few minutes trying to locate the classics section and eventually found it -- one small, bottom shelf of books and none of them were what I was looking for. So, feeling rather disappointed I decided to try one last place for something worth while to read to my kids, the Adult Religion section of the library. I could not believe my eyes! There was not one Christian book, not even a Bible!!! All the books were of the humanistic, self-help kind or about other religions but not one on Christianity.
"This should not be a surprise when children are being trained in humanism in schools! Why would the government libraries stock material which would contradict their training and threaten to undo all that they have worked for. It so sad that a country so rich in Godly heritage, where so many men have penned amazing sermons and books on God's law, that you cannot find even one of those books in the library. It really opened my eyes to, and made me more aware of, the battle that is on in this country and just how important it is to train up my children in God's ways, doing everything I can to make available to them the precious resources that are not obtainable from these assistant government training facilities.
This made me recall my own "library story."
Years ago we were studying about the influential people that shaped the thinking of colonial America. Sir William Blackstone's name kept coming up in reading and lectures so I thought it would be a good idea to check his writings out first-hand. My children and I went to the local library and went looking for Blackstone's Commentaries. I wasn't able to locate them so I asked the librarian for assistance. She came back with a big smile on her face and handed me Blackstone's Magic Tricks for Children. I told her I was looking for Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England. She told me that she got what I asked for. I was dumbfounded. I pointed out that what I was looking for was an important part of English and American history. Indignantly, she asked me, "Do you want this book or not?"
At this local branch of a major city's public library we couldn't get Blackstone, but we COULD get biographies of Cher, Elton John, Prince, and Blackstone the Magician!
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