Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1900-08-08

not una ner, and he VIII ne DISSATISFIED
man who gives himself up to the indis-
criminate reading of novels will be nerve
less. inane and a nuisance. He will be fit
neither for the store. nor the shop, nor the
field. A woman who gives herself up to
the indiscriminate reading of novels will
be untitled for the duties of wife. mother,
sister. daughter. There she is. hair dis
heveled, countenance vacant. cheeks pale,
hands trembling. bursting into tears at
midnight over the fate of some unfortu-
nate lover; in the daytime, when she
ought to busy, staring by the half hour at
nothing; biting her finger nails into the
quick. The carpet that was plain before
will be palmer after having wandered
through a romance all night long in tessel
lated halls of castles. And your indus
trious companion will he more unattrac-
tive than ever, now that YOU have walked
in the romance through parks with
piumed princesses, or lounged in the arbor
with polished desperate. Oh. these con
irmed no. | readers, They are untitled
for this life winch is a tremendous dis
cipline. They know not how to go
through the furnaces OF trial through
which they must pass. and they are un-
fitted for a world where everything we
gain we achieve by hard and long continu-
ing work.
Again. abstain from all those books
which, while they have some good things.
have also an admixture of evil You have
read DOCKS that hau TWO elements IN
them-the good and the bad. Which
struck you? The bad The heart of most
people is like a sieve which let's the small
particles of gold fall through. but keeps
the great cinders. Once in awhile there is
a mind like a loadstone which, plunged
the steel and repels the brass. But it is
generally exactly the opposite. If you
attempt to plunge through "a hedge of
burs to get one blackberry, you will get
more burs than blackberrIes. You cannot
afford to read bad book. however good
nifcant." / tell you that the scratch of
pin has sometimes produced lock-iaw.
Alas, if through curiosity. as MANY do,
You pry into an evil book your curiosity
is as dangerous that of the man who
would take torch into gunpowder mill
to see whether it would really blow W
or not!
In menaqerie in New York man
put his arm through the bars of a black
leopard's cage. The animals hide looked
so sleek and bright and beautiful He just
strol;ed it once The monster seized him,
and he drew forth a hand torn and man
gled and bleeding. Oh. touch not evil
with the faintest stroke Though it may
be glossy and beautiful. touch it not lest
you pull forth your soul torn and bleed.
ing under the clutch of the leopard.
But" you. say, ''how can | find out
reading it, There is ALWAYS something
suspicious about a bad book. | never
knew an eXception-somethIng suspicious
in the index or style of illustration This
venomous reptile always carries n warning
rattle.
Much of the impure pictorial literature
is most tremendous for ruin. There is no
one who can like good pictures better
than | do. The quickest and most con
densed way of impressing the public mind
is by a picture. What the painter does
by his brush for few favorites the en-
graver does by his knife for the million.
What the author accomplshes by fifty
pages the artist does by flash The best
part of a painting that costs $1,000 you
may buy for ten cents. Fine paintings
belong to the democracy of art. You
do well to gather good pictures in your
homes.
But what shall / say of the prostitution
of art to purposes of iniquity2 These
death warrants of the soul are at every
street corner. They smite the vision OF
the young man with pollution. Many
a young man buying n copy has bought his
eternal discontinue.
There may be enough poison in one bad
picture to poison one soul, and that soul
may poison ten and fifty and the fifty
hundreds and the hundreds thousands
until nothing but the measuring light of
eternity can tell the height and depth and
ghastliness and horror of the great undo
ing.
The work of death that the wicked
author does in whole book the bad en-
graver may do on a half side of pic
torial. Under the guse OF pure mirth the
young man buys one of these sheets. He
unrolls it before his companions amid
roars of laughter, but long after the paper
is gone the result may perhaps be seen in
the blasted imaginations of those who
saw it.
H., e Ill 10,
every night, and these periodicals are the
invitation to her guests.
Young man. buy not this moral strych-
nine for your soull Pick. not up the nest
of coiled adders for your pocket Pat
ronize no newsstand that keeps them!
Have your room bright with good en-
cravings, but for these outrageous pctori-
ais have not one wall, one bureau, not
one pocket.
A man is no better than the pictures
he loves to look at. If your eyes are not
pure, your heart cannot be. At news.
man by the kind of pictorial he pur-
chases.
When the devil fails to get a man 10
read a bad book, he sometimes succeeds
in getting him to look at a bad picture.
When satan goes a-tishing, he does not
line if he only draws his victim in. Be
ware of lacivious pictorials, young man,
in the name of Almighty God, / charge
you,
Cherish good books and newspapers;
beware of bad ones. The assassin OF Lord
crime by reading one vivid romance. The
consecrated John Angel James, than
whom England never produced better
man, declared in his old age that he had
never got over the evil effects of having
for fifteen minutes once read a bad book
Il,tt | - tnr of I foil
YOU of a comrade who was great hearted,
noble and generous. He was studying for
an honorable profession, but he had an
infidel book in his trunk, and he said to
me m one one day ts DE Witt; .iv would ,I, you Ike
took the book and read it only for a few
minutes. | was really startled with what
| saw there, and | handed the book back
to him and said. You had better destroy
that book" No: he kept it He read it.
He reread it. After q while he gave, up
religion as a myth. He gave up God "a
a nonentity. He gave up the Bible as a
fable. He gave up the church of Christ
rs 4 useless institution. lie gave up good
morals being unnecessarily stringent.
| have heard OF him but twice in many
years. The time before the last | heard
1f him he was a confirmed inebriate. The
asst | heard OF him he coming out of
IN insane asylum, in body, mind and soul
IN awful wreck. / believe that one infidel
book Killed HIM Tor two worlds.
Go home to-day and look through your
library. and then, having looked through
four library, look on the stand where you
Keep your pictorials and newspapers and
lpply the Christian principles | have laid
!own this hour. If there is anything in
yOur home that cannot stand the test. do
not give it away. for it might spoil an
immortal soul. Do not sell it, for the
money you get would be the price of
blood but rather kindle a fire on your
kitchen hearth or in your back yard and
then drop the poison in it, and the bon
ire in your city shall be as consuming
rs that one in Ephesus.
He that is ungrateful has no guilt
but one: all other crimes may pass for
virtues in him.
Human nature is so constituted that
all see and judge better In the affairs