“People will not look forward to posterity who will not look backward to their ancestors.” — Edmund Burke
“Self-righteousness is being more aware of and irritated by the sins of others than you are conscious of and grieved by your own.” — Paul Tripp
“Some people get an education without going to college; the rest get it after they get out.” — Mark Twain
“I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.” — Martin Luther
“People fall in private, long before they fall in public. The tree falls with a great crash, but the secret decay which accounts for it, is often not discovered until it is down on the ground.” — J. C. Ryle
“Question everything but Scripture.” — Geoff Botkin
“Be as careful of the books you read as of the company you keep, for your habits and character will be as much influenced by the former as by the latter.” — Paxton Hood
“The very familiarity of blessings sometimes makes us insensible to their value."— J. C. Ryle
“Dreams don’t work unless you do.” — John C. Maxwell
“The world is a book, and those who do not travel, read only a page.” — St. Augustine
“Luther once said, ‘The devil hates goose quills,’ and, doubtless, he has good reason, for ready writers, by the Holy Spirit’s blessing, have done his kingdom much damage.” — C. H. Spurgeon
“A ship in the harbor is safe—but that is not what ships are built for.” — John Shedd
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." — Edmund Burke
“True education is not giving in the answer, it’s in showing them how to find it.” — Kelly Crawford
“If you don’t fear God, you’ll fear everything.” — Dan Horn
“Non-Christian investigators of nature are as successful as they are because they work with stolen capital.” — Cornelius Van Til
“We should never do what we cannot pray God to bless.” — James Smith
“Heaven is eternity in the presence of God through a Mediator. Hell is eternity in the presence of God with no Mediator.” — Tony Reinke
“Drag and Drop for Windows users: DRAG your peecee off your desk, and DROP it in the trash.” — some forum member’s tagline
“Paul’s life was a prophetic book for Jews to read and see how to be saved, so our lives should be an easy to read book for the lost on how they can easily be saved.” — Ken Ham
“TV. If kids are entertained by two letters, imagine the fun they’ll have with twenty-six. Open your child’s imagination. Open a book.” — Unknown
“The measure of a great teacher isn’t what he or she knows; it’s what the students know.” — John C. Maxwell
"When a Christian shuns fellowship with other Christians, the devil smiles. When he stops studying the Bible, the devil laughs. When he stops praying, the devil shouts for joy." — Corrie ten Boom
“Every post is honorable in which a man can serve his country.” — George Washington
“When she married you, she gave you her life to spend. Are you spending your life wisely?” — Dan Horn
“The cold water of persecution is often thrown on the church’s face to fetch her to herself when she is in a swoon of indolence or pride.” — C. H. Spurgeon
“The glory of great men should always be measured by the means they have used to acquire it.” — La Rochefoucauld
“People who have time on their hands will inevitably waste the time of people who have work to do.” — Thomas Sowell
“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.” — Sir Richard Steele
“Man does not need to know exhaustively in order to know truly and certainly.” — Cornelius Van Til
“Television is an invention that permits you to be entertained in your own living room by people you wouldn’t have in your house.” — David Frost
“[T]he ministry of Satan is employed to instigate the reprobate, whenever the Lord, in the course of his providence, has any purpose to accomplish in them...” — John Calvin (Institutes 2.4.5)
“My dear friend, when grief presses you to the dust, worship there.” — C. H. Spurgeon
“You don’t have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.” — C. S. Lewis
“[N]ot one particle remains to man as a ground of boasting. The whole is of God.” — John Calvin (Institutes 2.3.6)
“The happiest people don’t have the best of everything, they simply make the best of everything they have.” — Unknown
“Good government generally begins in the family, and if the moral character of a people once degenerate, their political character must soon follow.” — Elias Boudinot
“Music is a discipline, and a mistress of order and good manners, she makes the people milder and gentler, more moral and more reasonable.” — Martin Luther
“I will keep the ground that God has given me and perhaps in his grace, he will ignite me again. But ignite me or not, in his grace, in his power, I will hold the ground.” — John Knox
“Even if you are on the right track, but just sit there, you will still get run over.” — Will Rogers
“One proud, surly, lordly word, one needless contention, one covetous action, may cut the throat of many a sermon. Take heed to yourselves, lest your example contradict your doctrine.” — Richard Baxter
“I have enough money to last me the rest of my life, unless I buy something.” — Jackie Mason
“I find television very educational. Every time someone turns it on, I go in the other room and read a book.” — Groucho Marx
“Thanks, modest girls. Appreciated by a male whose time studying the ground is proportional to each degree of rising temperature.” — Unknown
“A lot of men have a wishbone where they ought to have a backbone.” — Unknown
“I began my education at a very early age—in fact, right after I left college.” — Winston Churchill
“I’m not lost.” — Frank Churchill
“What is the best safeguard against false doctrine? The Bible regularly read, regularly prayed over, regularly studied.” — J. C. Ryle
— May 18th, 2012 —
Where Are the Authors?
Where are the authors? The world of children’s literature today is often fraught with rubbish or, at best, “neutral” stories for children. While there is nothing necessarily wrong with many of these “neutral” stories (and indeed some of them are truly delightful and wonderful stories we grew up with), where are those who will be brave and daring and set a standard and write Reformed books for children?—storybooks for us to read to our little boys and our little girls?—storybooks of godly family life?—history books that are unafraid to tell history accurately and point out the Providences of God?—biographies of great Christian men and women?—books that are willing to take the fundamental and absolute authority of the Word of God as the fundamental and absolute starting point for children’s literature?
Where are the Authors? Are they nowhere to be found? Is there no one who will advance the Standard of God in the arena of modern children’s literature? “The battle is won or lost in the high chair.”—While this quote is referring specifically to child training, the principle behind it also applies to literature: what we feed our children’s minds when they are young is one of the greatest contributors to the shaping of their character as adults one day.
© 2012 Kyle Shepherd | All Rights Reserved | All images property of their respective owners
Body text set in Fanwood Text Regular & Italic; header set in Nevis.