A 200 Year Old Christmas Present

I got an early Christmas present.  A book.  An old school book published in 1822.  And it smells like a museum.  It's a collection of sermons by Hugh Blair, a Scottish minister of religion, author and rhetorician, considered one of the first great theorists of written discourse. 

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 When you open the book, there is this signature, "John W. Lydmons Book, July the 25th, 1834."

      Set next to the ipad, it's an ancient artifact.  Words remain, but the medium is so different.  Here's one of the sermons, "On our Life Being in the Hand of God."  The occasion:  "Preached at the beginning of a New Year" . . . a New Year that was at least 200 years ago.  Here's to 2013.