The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1877-12-20
Our Literature, Good and EVIL.

Our literature is not only reaching
more and more minds, but it is grow
ing purer as it flows. There is not an
immoral writer of any note on our
shores. One could not secure fame
were his works not fitted for the Chris
tian home. You may recall the names
of all those who are writing our books
and magazines, and you will confess
that as elegant and pure group of
writer's never marked any Greek or
Roman or French or English age
Prot. 'S,0ing's Thanksgiving Sermon.
Believing the sentiment, it should
raise within the heart profound sense
of gratitude. We have made and are
making progress. The education of
the people is into broader fields, with
more individual freedom of thought
and yet all camping around and upon
the firm foundations of Christianity
which embraces all the interests of man.
Dogmas and forms have given way,
and are losing their power, supplanted
by the spirit of liberality, justice and
right living. No age has been so pro-
life in book-making as this; and the
newspaper and magazine come to the
home as part of the food of every in
telligent household. As our pioneer
fathers sought the spring. breaking in
its purity from the hillside, and there
erected the home and guarded the
fountain where they and their loved
ones drank, so should we guard the
home and the family against the inn
pure and soul-poisoning literature that
still abounds. The writer of book,
or publisher, can be well assured that,
though it contain wit and argument and
romance of high order, yet, if it re-
motley teaches immortality, it will early
be classed among the failures. We
cannot overestimate the power of good
books and pure literature. The infu-
ence of the newspaper and the maya
zine of the age will be felt in the age
to come, in the good or evil seeds which
they sow, to grow and develop
and mature. We know there is large
class of croakers abroad, who decry the
age in which we live, and declare it
wholly evil, with more wickedness
Astounding than ever before. 1t is easy
to see how they are misled, by the
changes of the times, which have given
us steam and electricity. Every city
is great center, where the crimes of
the world are told at the breakfast
table. A thousand deeds of benefcence
are crowded aside for the narrowing
details of murder. The love acts Of
a great community are not heralded
abroad by telegraph, but acts of cruel
ty, or the drunken mutterings of a
Rande, are too often regarded as i'm
portant, and the surface-th thinker will
jump to the conclusion that the whole
earth is given over to evil. Do not be-
lieve the croakers, for while crime ex-
lists, yet there is a grand army in all
this broad land ready to battle for the
right. We have the literature; we
have institutions of benevolence and
charity, churches and schools; we have
homes and the holy and pure influence
of woman. Under such influences the
earth is being learned and enlightened.
We have more care and less hatred;
more humanity and less selfshness.
Our Christianity has more culture, is
broader and more liberal, embracing
all mans highest interests.
The outlook is hopeful and cheering;
but we need workers, not grumblers.
A society pure, and literature free of
all criticism, will only come with the
millennial day. But drawing from the
wisdom of the past, let us each do a
part, and the grand results are sure
Chicago Inter- Ocean.