Old Temperance Bookshop

The Old Temperance in the attractive North Yorkshire village of Reeth is one of those rare jewels: a good Christian bookshop. Thanks to successful online ventures in the Christian world (of which I fully approve and not infrequently patronise) or decreasing literacy among the people of God, bookshops dedicated to godly tomes are like hen’s teeth. I was pleased to call there late winter, and renew my acquaintance with its proprietors, whom I met at university friends' wedding two decades back. It was enjoyable to browse the shelves without resorting to the Body, Spirit & Soul section, to which secular booksellers are pleased to consign what few Christian books they are prepared to sell.

While there, I must confess to indulging in a little fantasy of mine. I can honestly say that I harbour no ambitions of ‘promotion’ to a bigger and grander church after Salem Chapel, even assuming such churches would want me. I should prefer to stay among the goodly folk of Long Lover Lane. So to what do I secretly aspire? Well, I should like to run a Christian bookshop. Not a very successful one, mind; one with enough customers to keep the lights on, but not so many that I could not enjoy reading all the stock without excessive interruption. It is of course highly unlikely that this ambition will ever be realised. Yet the relatively cheap price of books in this nation which is currently the top (or second to the top) book exporter in the world, means that we can make our homes into Christian bookshops: we stock them with good material, and then seek to pass it on, and making even less financial gain that the real shops.

Capernaum in the first century AD did not realise how privileged it was for having the Lord Jesus walk it streets and teach in its synagogues. I wonder if the good burghers of Reeth and its environs really know how blessed they are on account of having so much printed spiritual truth in its very midst.