The Canton times. (Canton, Miss.) 1893-1906, 1900-08-10

lasting welfare we must make an intel
ligent and Christian choice.
Standing as we do, chin deep in fic-
titious literature, the question that
young people are asking is: Shall we
read novels?" Ireply: There are nov
els that are pure, good, Christian, ele-
waiting to the heart and ennobling to
the life. But still have further to say
that believe that rs out of the 100 nov
els in this day are baleful and destruc-
tive to the last degree. A pure work of
fiction is history anc poetry com bined.
1t is history of things around us With
the licenses and the assumed names of
poetry. The world can never pay the
debt which it owes to such writers of
fiction as Hawthorne and Mckenzie
and Landon and Hunt and Arthur and
Others whose names are familiar to all.
The follies of high life were never bet
ter exposed than by Miss Edgeworth.
The memories of the past were never
more faithfully embalmed than in the
writings of Walter Scott. Cooper's
novels are BEAUTIFULLY redolent with the
breath of the seaweed and the air Of
the American forest. Charles Kings
ley has smitted the morbidity of the
world and led great many to appre-
ciate the poetry of sound health, strong
muscles and fresh air. Thackeray did
q grand work in caricaturing the pre-
tenders to gentility and high blood
Dickens has built his own monument in
his books, which are plea for the
poor and the anathema of injustice,
and there are score of novelistic pens
to-day doing mighty work for God and
Righteousness.
Now, l say, books like these, read at
right times and read in right proper
ton with other books, cannot help but
be ennobling and purifying; but, alas,
for the loathsome and impure literature
that has come in the shape of novels.
like freshet overlooking all the banks
of decency and common sense! They
are coming from some of the most cele-
brated publishing houses. They are
coming with recommendation of some
of our religious newspapers. They
lie on your center table to curse your
children and blast with their Internal
fires generations unborn. You find
these books in the desk of the school
miss, in the trunk of the young man,
in the steamboat cabin, on the table
of the hotel reception-room. You see
a light in your child's room late at
night. You suddenly go in and say:
what are you doing?" 81 am read
ing" What are you reading?" "a
book" You look at the book 1t is
bad book. 'Where did you get ?" 81
borrowed it," Alas, there are always
those abroad who like to loan to your
son or daughter bad book! Every
where, everywhere, an unclean litera-
tude. l charge upon it the destruction
of 10000 immortal souls, and bid you
wake up to the magnitude of the evil.
charge you in the first place to
stand aloof from all books that give
,alse pictures of life. Life is neither
| tragedy nor a farce. Men are not
Ill either knaves or heroes. Women |
ire neither angels nor furies. And yet |
f you depended upon much of the lit
q otuic VI VIC udy you Nouiu Sct thC |
dea that life, instead of being some
hing earnest, something practical, is
! ftful and fantastic and eXtrava-
rant thing. How poorly prepared are
hat young man and woman for the
luties of to-day who spent last night
vading through brilliant passages de-
criptive of magnificent knavery and
The man will be looking
II day long for his heroine in the Of
ice, by the forge, in the factory, in
he counting room, and he will not
ind her, and he will be dissatisfied.
man Who gives himself up to the in
iscriminate reading of novels will be
erveless, inane and a nuisance. He
7ill be fit neither for the store, nor
he shop nor the field. A woman who
ives herself up to the indiscriminate
eading of novels will be untitled for
he duties of wife, mother, sister,
aughter. There she is, hair dishev-
led, countenance vacant, cheeks pale,
ands trembling, bursting into tears
midnight over the fate of some I'M
lover; in the daytime, when
ne ought to be busy, staring by the
alf hour at nothing biting her fin
er nails into the quick. The carpet
nat was plain before will be palmer
fter having wandered through a ro-
ance all night long in tessellated
alls of castles. And your industrious
will be more unattractive
ian ever, now that you have walked |
| the romance through parks with
umed princesses or lounged in the
-bOr with the Dolished desDerado