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Book Binding
Friday, September 12, 2025 by Rick Stockwell
Book Binding
READ Colossians 3:18-25
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters …
-- Colossians 3:23 (NIV)
My grandparents bought a fifty-volume book series called The Harvard Classics. Edited by former Harvard University President Charles W. Eliot, the first twenty-five volumes were published in 1909 and the second twenty-five volumes were published in 1910. His goal was to “provide such knowledge of ancient and modern literature as seemed essential to the twentieth-century idea of a cultivated man.” My goal is to read all fifty books one day, and use some of the more interesting material I encounter in these devotionals. I’m currently on book #10, Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. It’s slow-going, but I’m plugging away at it.
While I’ve learned a lot reading these books, the thing that has struck me most is the quality of the book binding. Each volume contains a series of hand-stitched booklets that are bound together and have lasted over one-hundred years. I once took a class on hand-stitching books, so I appreciate the skill involved in doing this. While reading, I sometimes imagine a young man, wearing a white shirt and a tie, bent over a large table in a dusty New York City warehouse, patiently assembling the books, unaware that no one would touch the pages he's working on for one-hundred and sixteen years.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
It can take a long time for our work to bear fruit.
Prayer: Father in heaven, please help us to do our work well so that it might benefit others in the future.
Prayer Focus: READERS
Rick Stockwell
Rick Stockwell retired from a career in information technology, teaches Sunday school for first graders, served as an elder at his church, has been married for thirty-five years, and has two children and six grandchildren.
Rick is the author of two novels in his Heavenly Realms series called The Wall and The Battle. Audio, eBook and paperback versions are accessible via this link: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B07HQ8G3MJ
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