Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1900-09-06

cal, Is n fitfui and fantastic and extrava-
CANT thing. How poorly prepared are
that young man and woman for the du-
ties of to-day who spent last night wading
through brilliant passages descriptive of
magnificent knavery and wickedness! The
man will be looking all day long for his
heroine, in the Office. by the forge, in the
factory, in the counting room, and he will
not find her, and he will be dissatisfied.
man who gives himself up to the indis-
crlminate reading of novels will be nerve
less, inane and a nuisance. He will be fit
neither for the store, nor the shop, nor the
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-
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 romance all night long in tessel-
lated halls OF castles. And your indus
trious companion will be more unattrac-
tive than ever, now that you have walked
IN the romance through parks with
plumed princesses, or lounged in the arbor
with polished desperado. Oh, these con
for this life, which is IA tremendous dis
clpline: They know not how to go
through the furnaces of trial through
which they must pass, and they are un-
fitted for 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 books that had 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
amid steel and brass filings, gathers up
generally exactly the opposite. If you
attempt to plunge through hedge of
burs to get one blackberry, you will get
more burs than blackberries. You cannot
afford to read bad book, however good
you are. You say, "The influence is insig-
niticant." l tell you that the scratch of
a pin has. sometimes produced lock-jaw.
Alas, If through curiosity, as many do,
you pry into an evil book your curiosity
is as dangerous as that of the man who
would take torch into gunpowder mill
to see whether it would really blow up
or not!
In a menagerie in New York man
put his arm through the bars of black
leopard's cage. The animals hide looked
SO sleek and bright and beautiful. He just
stroked 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
whether a book is good or bad without
reading t?' There is always something
suspicious about bad book. l never
| knew an exception-something suspicious
in the index or style of illustration This
venomous reptile always carries 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 accomplishes by fifty
pages the artist does by fash The best
part of painting that costs $4,000 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 iniquity? These
death warrants of the soul are at every
street corner. They smte the vision of
| the yourg man with pollution. Many
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-
/ 4 l.1E = e
| torial. Under the guse of pure mirth the
young man buys one OF these sheets. He
unrclls 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.
| The queen of death holds a banquet
every night, and these periodicals are the
| invitation to her guests.
Young man, buy not this moral strych-
| nine for your soul! 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 pictori-
| ais have not one wall, one bureau, not
one pocket.
\ man is no better than the pictures
| he loves to look at Ii your eyes are not
pure, your heart cannot be. At a news
stand one can guess the character of
| man by the kind of pictorial he pur-
chases.
When the devil fails to get man to
| read bad book. he sometimes succeeds
in getting him to look at bad picture.
When satan goes a-tishing. he does not
care whether it is a long line or short
line ii he only draws his victim in, Be
ware OF lacivious pietorials, young man,
in the name OF Almighty God, | charge
you
Cherish good books and newspapers:
beware OF bad ones. The assassin of Lord
Russell declared that he was led into
crime by reading one vivid romance. The
consecrated John Angel james, than
whom England never produced a better
man, declared in his old age that he had
never got over the evil effects of having
Tor fifteen minutes once read bad book:
But | need not go 50 far off could tell
you of a comrade who was great hearted.
noble and generous. lie was studying for
an honorable profession, but he had an
iniidel book in his trunk. and he said to
me one day, DE Witt. would you like
to read it!'' | said. Yes; would"
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