The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-12-05
BECoMrNG ACQUAINTED WITH
EVIL.

In an article that cannot fail to
commend itself to all right thinking
and right desiring persons, the New
| York Tribune discusses the very i'm
portant question Of making the
acquaintance of the devil Better not
read" said Niebuhr, books in which
you make the acquaintance of the
devil" is the distinguishing note OF
the article.
It is truly said that there has been
of late a flood of problem novels, in
which the problem is that of the re-
lations of the sexes. and that the So
| luton sought is almost invariably to
make those relations not pure, natural
and ennobling, but unclean, abnormal
and debasing The article then goes
on to say that the latter-day predomin-
ance Of newspapers over books does
not in the least lessen the force and
value of the philosophers injunction.
It cannot be denied that there is much
truth in this also, too much truth from
the very necessity of the case. The
article then proceeds to say that it is
better not to read anything in which
the acquaintance of evil is made, yet
that lin the current reading of the
day, how evil is Haunted and forced
upon the public acquaintance! Here is
| a wretched woman of the town litter
ate, drunken, debauched. Her whole
life has been given UP to physical and
moral filth. There is not an honest
shopgirl in town who, meeting her upon
the street, would not instinctively step
aside, lest her skirts should brush
against the creature and be defle5.
The career of vice is, however, crowned
with a capital crime, or with soma
participation in one. Instantly that
fact is made the excuse for introduce
ing the woman personally to the entire
public. Through the medium Of the
press she is brought into the house
hold, into the family circle. Her hid
eous features are thrust before every
eye. Her ignorant and vicious words
are repeated to every ear. She is made
the subject of psychological studies
and every infection of her voice as she
tells her tale of infamy is descanted
upon and interpreted as though it
were the utterance of an oracle.
THE example is only one of an in
Vulnerable multitude with which the
reading-matter of the day is crowded,
t Those who read make the acquaintance
not only of the devil, but of all the
inhabitants of pandemonium. If, then,
people are to be known by their
acquaintance, what is to be said Of
the present or of the oncoming genera
ton of readers? It is a forbidding
prospect The daily saturation Of
minds and of immature minds with all
5 manner of filth inevitably conduces to
unsoundness. To argue otherwise is
to contradict common sense. When
} men sleep in miasmatic swamps to
avoid fever and ague, and soak them
= selves in rum to escape drunkenness,
they may fortify themselves against
vice and crime by gloating over them
and making heroes of their perpetra-
t tors. But when that time comes we
l shall have to rewrite every chapter of
moral philosophy. At present it is
safest to shun evil to look upward if
: we would rise, to look forward if we
: would make progress, and, if we would
have earth move toward her earthly
best, to obey the advice given by
! ancient Whatsoever things
. are pure, whatsoever things are lovely,
0 Whatsoever things are of good report,
think on these things"
How true it is that "evil communica-
= tons corrupt good manners" And
n what greater source Of evil communi-
I cation than that reading where the
acquaintance of the devil is made?
Whatever tolerates evil without con-
:, demning it or seeks to make it less
h hideous than it is in the moral world.
g encourages acquaintance with the
s devil Young people and old read
books where the chief aim is to make
evil attractive, where under the pre-
: tense of working out a psychological or
e social problem the moral law is
y treated as a small and Indifferent
Y thing, a something that must give way
if it interferes with the action Of the
story or the aspirations of the char
acters in it. The contamination OF
d evil is made through the mind chiefly
t and the fixed attention on the book OF
u periodical where the acquaintance OF
the devil is to be made is the surest
way to become contaminated.
There is a moral law, no matter
whence, and whenever it is ignored OF
Il trespassed against, at that moment
e the person guilty Of ignoring a tres
passing against it begins TO make this
acquaintance of the devil; and the
II acquaintance once begun is quite as
a apt to continue and become intimate
n as to cease. 1t is a fact, a deplorablt
IS fact, that much Of the reading of to-
day has tendency to make evi
prominent and laud it TO make it ap.
II pear as something other than it really
/ is; and it has its effect, and a bad eff
n feet it is.
ir --. -.