Evangelical Library

I called at the Evangelical Library this month. This is a large collection of evangelical Protestant books located in a surprisingly modern trading estate in north London, and it is open to the public. I will not go into its origins, for this is well documented elsewhere, but I enjoyed a happy hour or so poring over tomes and reading about Lollardy in the north of England.

I was once told that one can judge a man by the books on his shelves. My shelves look increasingly impressive, owing to the quantity and quality of the books under which they groan. More important might be the books we actually read rather than possess. A library is a wonderful concept, even in these days of cheap publishing. It requires a book to be returned by a certain date, spurring us to read it in a timely manner. They also allow others to benefit from them, and seldom leaves them languishing on a shelf, forlorn and forsaken.