The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1900-09-06

swamps, when We might walk in the
blooming gardens of God? Oh, NO!
For the sake Of our present and ever
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 novelist" reply: There are nov
els that are pure, good, Christian, ele-
vating to the heart and ennobling to
the life. But still have further to say
that believe that Is 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 ana poetry combined.
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 writer's 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 healthfully 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
. grand work in caricaturing the pre-
tenders to gentility and high blood.
Dickens has built his own monument in
his books, which are q 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. 4Ea
Now, I say, books like these, read at
right times and read in right proper
tion 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 overf1owing all the banks
of decency and common sense! They
are coming from some of the most cele-
brated publishing houses. They are
coming with recommendations 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?" II am read
ing" "What are you reading?" "A
book" You look at the book. It's .
bad book. "Where did you get it?'' II
borrowed it," Alas, there are always
those abroad who like to loan to your
son or daughter a bad book! Every
where, everywhere, an unclean litera-
tude. charge upon it the destruction
of 10000 immortal souls, and / bid you
wake up to the magnitude Of the evil.
I charge you In the first place to
stand aloof from all books that give
false pictures of life. Life is neither
q tragedy nor farce. Men are not
all either knaves or heroes. Women
are neither angels nor furies. And yet
if you depended upon much of the lit
erature of the day you would get the
idea that life, instead Of being some
thing earnest, something practical, is
q fitful and fantastic and extrava-
CANT thing. How poorly prepared are
that young man and woman for the
duties Of to-day who spent last night
wading through brilliant passages de-
scriptive Of magnificent knavery and
wickedness! The man will be looking
all day long for his heroine in the Of
fee, by the forge, in the factory, in
the counting room, and he will not
ind her, and he will be dissatisfied.
A man who gives himself up to the in
discriminate reading Of novels will be
nerveless, inane and q nuisance. He
will be at 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 ID, hair dishey-
eled, countenancee vacant, cheeks pale,
hands trembling, bursting into tears
at midnight over the fate Of some nm
fortunate lover; in the daytime, when
she ought to be busy, staring by the
half hour at nothing biting her fin
ger nails into the quick. The carpet
that was plain before will be palmer
after having wandered through a ro-
nance all night long in tessellated
halls Of castles. And your industriou,
companion will be more unattractive
than ever, now that you have walked
in the romance through parks with
plumed princesses or lounged in thu
arbor with the polished desperate
Oh, these confirmed novel readersl
They are untitled for this life, which
il . tremendous discipline. They
know not how to 60 through the fur
naces of trial through which they
must pass, and they are unified fol
. world where everything we gain ~,
achieve by hard and long continued
work.
again. I charge yen to stand Of
from all those books which corrup
i -