Excerpt from Life and Times of James B. Taylor

It is stated by booksellers that in the present age biographies are overlooked and neglected. Well-written lives of great, good, and distinguished men encumber the shelves of publishers, while works of fiction, and indeed most other kinds of books, find a ready sale. If this statement is true - as doubtless it is - the fact is unfortunate for the age. History, it is said, is philosophy teaching by example. If this saying is true of history, it is specially true of biography. This presents, in a clear light, the results of the various principal motives and influences which give impulse to human life and guide its course. We are taught the value of this species of composition by the Bible. It is composed largely of the biographies, not formal and full, but fragmentary and graphic, both of good and of bad men. The four evangelists have furnished us biographies of the most wonderful Being whose dwelling has been on earth, and in a style of inimitable simplicity, faithfulness, and beauty. It would not be possible for didactic writing, however wise and authoritative, to impart such a charm and power to holiness as it has in the simple biography of Jesus of Nazareth. If the world has lost its taste for biography, this fact is a sad proof that its taste is vitiated, and the friends of a healthful literature should labor to correct the evil.

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