Old books can give us the best wisdom of other ages. They can get our attention, surprise us, refresh us, warm our hearts. Besides that we can often buy them cheaper than new books or even download them free from the internet. Another thing about old books is that they are in the public domain (uncopyrighted). You may save them on your computer if you want to read them offline or print them out.

Acknowledgements to the efforts of the Christian Classics Ethereal Library where many more books and writings are available.

William Law:
The Spirit of Prayer
For many years I had seen William Law's name associated with his best known work A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, published in 1729. I found his subsequent writings online in the Christian Classics Ethereal Library. The Spirit of Prayer is one of those. In it Law presses for an inner relationship to God as the only alternative to a lifeless, legalist religion. The redemption that Christ brings is a process that brings us into communion with the heavenlies. "Heaven is as near to our Souls, as this World is to our Bodies" he writes, showing us that in Christ we have the hope which many of us have hardly dared to hope—that our God "is not an absent or distant God, but is more present in and to our Souls, than our own Bodies."
I loved this book (and its title) so much that I named this web site after it.

P.T.Forsyth:
The Soul of Prayer
Published in 1916, this book was a radical statement on the relationship that exists between God and man. This relationship is lived out through prayer as we allow our conversation with God to be reality-based. We approach Him, speaking in our true voice. If we have desperate needs we pray desperately, if we have doubts we come to Him with our doubts not pretending or donning masks in an attempt to appear stronger than we are. Prayer is our response to God's call. It all begins with Him and He "draws us out by breathing Himself in" says Forsyth.

Thomas Traherne:
The Centuries of Meditations
These life-affirming devotional messages were written in the seventeen century by Thomas Traherne. He was a minister of the Church of England and a poet who is counted among the metaphysical poets of Britain. In about the year 1904 these writings, in manuscript form, were found in a London bookstall by Bertram Dobell who was so impressed with their quality and value that he proceeded to take steps toward their publication in 1908. I first read them about four years ago, having seen a reference to Traherne in a book by James Houston of Regent College, Vancouver. Soon after that I found that CCEL (Christian Classics Ethereal Library) had scanned them and posted them online. I immediately volunteered to do the cleanup work, getting the text straightened up and corrected. As well as posting them there I decided to post them here and make them available to friends. There are four full sets of hundreds (hence, the name Century) and a fifth, an unfinished set.