The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1900-08-10
mighty work for God and righteous
ENNoBLING AND PURIFYING.

ness.
ENROLLING AND PURIFYING.
Now, 1 say, books like these, read at
right times and read in right proportion
with other books, cannot help but be
and purifying; but, alas, for
the loathsome and impure literature
that has come in h shape of towels,
like a freshet overlooking all the banks
Iof decency and common sense. They
are coming from some of h most cele-
lbrated publishing houses They are
looming with recommendation of some
of our religious newspapers. They lie
ION your center table to ours you
children and blast with their Internal
fires generations unborn. You find
lthese books in the desk of the school
miss, in the trunk OF the young man,
lin 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?" ~ am reading"
What are you reading?" "A book"
You look at the book. 1t is a bad
book. Where did you get it?" Il
borrowed it." Alas, there are always
those abroad who would like to loan
your son or daughter a bad book!
Every where, everywhere, an unclan
literature. I charge upon it h de-
lstruction of 10000 immortal souls, and
I bid you wake up to h magnitude
of the evil.
1 shall take all the worlds literature
good novels and bad, travels true
and false, histories faithful n incor-
rect. legends beautiful and monstrous,
all tracts, all chronicles, all poems, all
family, city, state and national II
lbrarieS-and pile them up in a pyramid
lof literature, and then 1 shall bring to
bear upon it some grand, glorious prin-
Iciples. infallible, unmistakable Chris
tan principles. God help me to speak
with reference to my last account and
help you to listen.
/ charge you in the first place to
stand aloof from all books that give
false pictures of life. Life neither a
tragedy o a farce. Men are not all
either knaves or heroes. Women are
neither angels nor furies. And yet if
you depended upon much of the litera-
iture of the day you would get the idea
that life instead of being something
learnest, something practical, is a fitful
and fantastic and eXtravagant thing.
How poorly prepared are tina young
man and woman for the duties of to-
day who spent last night sding
Through brilliant passages descriptive
lof magnificent knavery and wicked
mess! The man will be looking all day
long for his heroine in the office, by
the forge, in the factory, in the count
ing room, n he will not find her, and
he will be dissatisfied. A man who
gives himself up to the indiscriminate
lreading of novels will be nerveless, in
sane and a nuisance. He will be fit
neither for the store, o the shop, nor
the field. A woman who gives herself
lup to the indsicriminate reading of ov-
tels will be untitled for the duties of wife
mother, sister, daughter. There she is,
hair d~isheveled, countenance vacant,
cheeks pale, hands trembling, burst
ling into tna &c Of noidniOht ouar tho 70 fa
of some unfortunate lover; in the day.
time, when h ought to be busy, star
ing by the half hour at nothing, biting
her finger nails into the quick. The
carpet that was plain before will be
lplainer after having wandered through
a omance all night long i'm tessellated
halls Of castles. And your Industrious
companion will be more urattractive
than ever, now that you have walked
in the romance through parks with
lplumed princesses or loanged in the ar
Dor with the polished desperate. Oh,
these confirmed novel readers! They
are unified for this life, which is a
tremendous discipline. They know not
how to go through the furnaces Of trial
Through which they must pass, and
they are untitled for a world where
Everything we gain we achieve by hard
land long continuing work.
AVOID PARTIALLY BAD BOOKS.
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 ele-
lnents in them-the good and the bad.
(which stuck to you? The bad The
heart of most people is like a sieve,
(which lets the small particles of gold
fall through, but keeps the great Gin
Iders. Once in awhile there is a mind
like a loadstone which, plunged amid
steel and brass filings, gathers up the
steel and repelS the brass. But it is
generally exactly the opposite. If you
lattempt to plunge through a hedge OF
Iburs to get one blackberry, you will get
more burS than blackberries. You can
not afford to e a bad book, however
good you are. You say, 1.-The influence
is insignificant" I tell you that the
scratch Of a pin has sometimes pro-
lduced lockJaw. Alas, if through GU
lriosity, as many do, you pry into al
EVIL book, your curiosity is as danger
louS as that of the man who would take
a torch into a gunpowder mill to see
whether it woul really blow UP or not
In a menageries in New York a mar
put his arm through the bars of a
black leopard's cage. The animals hide
Hooked 80 sleek and bright and beau
ltiful. He just stroked it once. The
monster seized him, and he drew forth
Ia hand torn n mangled and bleeding
On, touch not evil, even with the faint
est stroke! Though it may be glossy
and beautiful, touch it not, lest you
pull forth Jul soul torn and bleeding
under the clutch of the leopard. But
you say "how can I find out whether q
book is good or bad without reading
Iit?" There is always something suspi.
Icious about a bad book. I knew
IAN exception-somethfng suspicious in
the indexo or style of illustration. This
Ivenomous reptile always carries g
warning rattle.
Again, 1 charge you to stand off from
all those books which corrupt the
imagination and fnf1ame the passions
do not refer now to that kind of bool
(which the william has under his Goa,
waiting for the school to get out, an6
then, looking both ways to see tha'
there is no policeman around the block
offers the o to your son on his way
home. 1 do not speak of that kin o.
literature, but that which evades tn,
law and comes u in polished style
and with accute plot, sounds the toe,
sin that rouses up all the baser pas
Isions of the SOUL. To-day, under tn,
tnaCfrT1C ~ A. 1891. 80