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Why is it that we remember some things and people while others are forgotten? To take an example at random, one of the popular books from Victorian times still being read in the 1930s was 'The Coral Island' by R.M. Ballantyne. He wrote 80 books for boys. I wonder how many boys today have even heard of Ballantyne, far less his books.
Leigh Hunt was a well known author and poet who wrote books;
only 6 lines of his poetry are included in a book of verse published in 1996 by BBC books. How well is James Fletcher, author of the great drama 'Hassan', remembered?
In the days when Communism mattered to people an applicant for membership of the Communist Party had to show that he or she had read and remembered Karl Marx's 'Das Kapital'. It probably does not matter now. The devotees of Communism are not (as far as I am aware) very numerous now.
No doubt there will be some who do remember these examples but, considering the forests of books that have been published, the number still remembered is pitifully small.
The Bible is still a best seller. To a Christian that is heartening but I wonder how many people in this country still read the Bible? Non-churchgoers will still affirm that they have read the Bible. It is not clear how much they remember what the Bible contains. It is even less clear how much they understand what the Bible contains and even less clear if they have any conception of why the question is important. How well we respond to such questions?
To bring all this home, those of us who at least hear the Bible read in church and hear the sermons which spring from the readings, have at hand the means of living in true spirituality, a calm in the face of all the turmoils the world can produce.
All that is easy to say. It is much more difficult to persuade people to read the Bible regularly and for those who do so, it is not at all easy to understand what we read and to remember the insights we learn. Why should it be? It has never been the case that standing still with eyes closed is the way to find something. Seek and you shall find - only five words, not difficult to remember, but so difficult to remember to go on searching.
Bob Mclean
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