Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1891-03-13

DdcK JnlS pluBuc VI IpNpblun ioSS - "
filling the minds of our young people with
a healthful literature. do not mean to say
that all the books and newspapers In our
families ought to be religious books and
newspapers, or that every song ought to be
sung to the tune of 'Old Hundred" have
no sympathy with the attempt 80 make the
young old would rather join in crusade
to keep the young young. Boyhood aud girl
hood must not be abbreviated. But there
are good books, good histories, cool biogra.
pixies, good works of fiction good books OF
all styles with which we are to fill the minds
of the young, so that there will be no more
room for the useless and the vicious than
there is room for chaff in a bushel measure
which is already filed with Michigan
wheat.
Why are fifty per cent. of'the criminals in
the tails and penitentaries Of the United
States to-day under twenty-one years OF
ageg Many of them under seventeen, under
sixteen, under fifteen, under fourteen, under
thirteen. Walk along one OF the corridors
of the Tombs prison in New York and look
for yourselves. Bad books, bad newspapers
bewitchei them as soon as they got out OF
the cradle. Beware of all those stories
which end wrong. Beware OF all those
books which make the road that ends IN
perdition seem 20 end in Paradise: DO not
BlOllIN lNb uilA anu lhc pioODis ~ NV S'''i
the desperate brave or the libertine gallant.
Teach our Young people that if they go down
into the swamps and marshes to watch the
JACKIE lanterns dance on the decay and
rottenness they viii catch the malaria and
death.
"Oh," says some one, Il am business
man. and have no time to examine what
my children read have no time toinspecS
the books that come into my household, III
your children were threatened with typhoid
fever, would you have Tina to go for the doc
tor? Would you have time to watch the
progress of the disease! Would you have
time for the funeral? In the presence OF my
Gcd | warn YOU of the fact that your chill
dren are threatened with moral and spirit
ual typhoid, and that unless the thing bo
stopped it will be TO them funeral OF body,
funeral of mind, funeral of souL Three
funerals in one day.
NV word is to this vast multitude OF young
people: Do not touch, do not borrow, do
not buy corrupt book or corrupt picture;
4 book will decide a mans destiny for good
or for evil. The book you read yesterday
may have decided you for time and for eter-
nifty, OF it may be a book that may come
into your possessions tomorrow.
A good book-who can exaggerate its
poverY BENJAMIN Franklin said that his
reading Of Cotton Mather's Essays to Do
Good in childhood gave him holy aspira-
tions for all the rest Of his life. George Law
declared that a biography he read IN child
hood gave him all his subsequent prosperl-
ties. A clergyman, many years ago, passing
to the far west, stopped at hotel lie saw
woman copying something from Dodd-
ridges Rise and Progress" II seemed that
she had borrowed the book, and there were
some things she wanted especially to re-
member.
The clergyman had in his sachel a copy OF
DCSdridge's Rise and Progress and so no
made her a present OF it. Thirty years
passed on. The clergyman came that way,
and he asked where the woman was whom
be had seen 50 long ago. ''She lives yonder
in that beautiful house" He went there and
said TO her, DO yOu remember mef She
said. mo I do not" He said, "Do you re-
member man gave you Doddridge,s Rise
and Progress thirty years agoY ''Oh, yes;
[ remember. That book saved my soul. l
loaned the book to ali my neighbors ami
they read it and they were converted to God,
and we had a revival Of religion which swept
through the whole community. We built
church and called a pastor. You sec that
spire Wonder, don't you? That church
was built as the result of that book you gave
me thirty years ago" Oh, the power of
good book But, alas for the influence OF a
bad book.
John Angel James, than whom England
never had q holier minister, stood IN his pull
pit at Birmingham AMI said: Twenty-Five
years ago a lad loaned to me an infamous
book He would loan il only fifteen min
utes. and then / had 10 give it back, but that
book has haunted me like specter ever
since. have il agony o. soIl, on my knees
before God, prayed that M would oollteTate
from my soul the memory OF It, but shall
carry the DAMAGE OF it until the day OF my
death. . The ass ssin Of Sir William Rus
sell declared that ne got the inspiration for
his crime by reading what was then new
and popular novel, Jack Sheppard
Homer's :Ilisd made Alexander the war.
rior. Alexander said so. the story oil
Alexan Ter male julius Cesar and Charles
XII. both men OF blood Have you in yOut
pocket. or in your trunk. OF in your desk ar
business a bad book bad picture, bad
pamphlet. In Gods name | warn you to de-
stroy il.
Another way in which we shall fight back
this corrupt literature and kill the frogs OF
Egypt Is BY rolling ovor them the Christian
printing press watch shall give plenty Of
healthflll reading to all adults All thess
men ana women are reaiing men and wo-
men. What are Won reading? Abstain from
sal those books which, while they had some
cool thing, about them, had also an admix-
ture of evil. You have read books that had
two elements in them-the good and the bad.
Which stuck 20 You; The bad The heart
Of most people is like a sieve, which lets the
small particles o. gold fall through, but
keeps tae great cinders. Once in while
i -,ft,l lilo n Loo Ist0TQ which
plunged amid steel and brass filings, gathers
IN The steel aud repcis the brass But 1t IS
generally the opposite If you attempt to
plunge through a fence of burrs to get one
blackberry, YOU VIII get more burrs than
blackberries.
You cannot afford to read bad book,
howevoi GOOD you are. You say, THE in
auepce is insignificant' ] tell you that the
scratch ofapn has sometimes produced lock-
law. Alas K through curiosity, as many do,
YOU DIV into an evil book, your curiosity Il
rs dangerous as that Of the man who would
take q torch into gunpowder mill merely
TO sec whether it would really blow up OF
not. In menagerie a man put his arm
through the bars of black leopards cage
Thesninlals hide looked so sleek and bright
and beautiful. He just stroked it once The
monster seized him, and he drew forth hand
torn and mangled and bleeding
Oh. touch not The evil even with the faint
est stroke Though it may be glossy and
beautiful, touch it not lest You pull forth
YOUR soul torn and bleeding under the clutch
Of the black leopard. But you say nov
can find out whether q book IS good or bad
without reading it, There is always some
thing suspicious about a bad book. / never
knew an xception-sonething suspicious in
the index or style Of illustration. This ven
omous reptile almost always carries warm
ing rattle.
The clock strikes midnight. A fair form
bends over romance. The eyes Hash
fire. The breath is quick and irregular.
Occasionally tue color dasles TO the cheek,
and then dies out The hands tremble as
though guardian spirit were trying to
shake the deadly book ont Of the grasp. Hot
tears fall. She laughs with shrill voice
that drops dead at its own sound. The
sweat on her brow is the spray dashed uD
from the river OF death. The CLOCK strikes
four. an the rosy dawn soon after begins to
look through the lattice upon the pale form
that looks like a detained specter OF the
night. Soon III a madhouse she will mistake
her ringlets for curling serpeants, and thrust
her white hand through the bars OF the
prison, and smite her lead. rubbing it back
as though to push the scalp from the skull,
shriekinr: my brainl my brainm Oh,
stand Off from that. Why will YOU 60
sounding your way amid the reefs and warn
ing buoys when there is such vast ocean
in which you NAV voyage, all sail set'
We SOP 50 many books wo do not under