Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1900-07-30

Mckenzie and LandOn and Hunt and
Arthur and others whose names are
familiar to all. The foIiies of high life
g were never better exposed than by
Miss Ldgew0rth; the memories Of the
past were never more faithfully en-
8 balmed than in the writings of Walter
Scott. Cooper'S novels are BEAUTIFULLY
redoIent with the breath of the sea-
weed and the air of the American fGg
est. Charles Kingsley has smitten the
morbidity Of the world and led great
. many to appreciate the poetry of sound
health, strong muscles and fresh air.
Thackeray did a grand work in carica-
turing the pretenders to gentilfty and
high blood. Dickens has built his own
monument in his books, which are a
plea for the poor and the anathema of
| injustice, and there are a score Of nov
e1iStic pens today doing mighty work
for God and righteousness.
Now, I 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 chill
dren 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 light
in your child's room late at night. You
suddenly go in and say, what are you
doing?' II am reading" what are
you reading? ga book" You look at
the book. 1t is a bad book. "Where
did you get it?' 81 borrowed it."
Alas, there are always those abroad
who would like to loan your son or
daughter bad book! Everywhere, ev-
eryWhere, an unclean literature! |
charge upon it the destruction of 10000
immortal souls, and l bid you wake
up to the magnitude of the evil.
Books to Destroy.
L shall take all the worlds literature
good novels and bad, travels true and
false, histories faithful and incorrect,
legends beautiful and monstrous-aII
tracts, all chronicles, all poems, all
family, city, state and national Ii
braries, and pile them up in a pyramid
Of literature, and then 1 shall bring to
bear upon it some grand, glorious, in
fallible, unmistakable Christian prin-
ciples. 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 is neither a trag-
edy nor a farce. Men are not all either
knaves or heroes. Women are neither
angels nor furies. And yet, if you de-
pended upon much of the literature of
the day, you would get the idea that
life, instead Of being something ear
nest something practical, is & fitful and
fantastic and eXtravagant thing. How
poorly prepared are that young man
and woman for the duties of today
who spent last night Wading through
brilliant paSSa geS descriptive of mag
nificent knavery and Wickednessi 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 be will
be dissatisfied. 4 man who gives him
self up to the indiscriminate reading
OF novels will be nerveless, 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 disheveled, cOunten&nce va
cant. cheeks pale, hands trembling,
bursting into tears at midnight over
the fate Of some unfortunate lover; in
the daytime, when she ought to be
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 tessellated halls Of castles. |
And your industrious companion will
be more unattractive than ever, now
that you have walked in the romance
through parks with plumed princesses,
or lounged in the arbOr with polished !
desperate. Oh, these confirmed novel |
readers! They are unified for this |
life, which is q tremendous discipline. |
They know not how to go through the !
furnaces of trial through which they
must pass, and they are untitled for
world where everything we gain we !
achieve by hard and long continuing
work.
Dangerous Curiosity.
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- |
ments in them-the good and the bad. |
Which stuck to you? The bad. The |