The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1901-05-09

them in the train of Sherman. 1t is nothing
less than the destruction of the home it.
self that is threatened What is it that
constitutes the essential idea Of home
what is that quality without which no
true home can exist? make bold to say
that it is faith: faith. in its deepest and
its widest meaning. 1t is the faith of the
child in the wisdom of the father; the
faith of the lad in the honor of his sister;
the faith of the husband in the fidelity of
his wife, of the wife in the manhood Of
her husbands and the faith of all of these
in the loving kindness of God-that is
home. For the tenderest picture of home
ever painted by the hand of man | point
vou to that matchless poem of Scotland,
The Cotter's Saturday Night" In the
chill Of drear November evening the
farmer turns him from his fields to his
hcarthStone, whereon the fame is not
half so bright as the faces Of wife and
children that greet him; so that soon,
while listening to the infant prattling on
his knee, "he quite forgets his labor and
his toll" Brothers and sisters gather in
the old family room, with unfeigned JOY
in their mutual interests. a timid rap
heard at the door presently makes young
Jennvs face flame and her bright eyes
shine, while she hastens to explain that
it is but some near neighbor's lad, come
on some trit1ing errand there. Welcomed,
the bashful lover joins himself to the
homely group, yet with that profound and
meditative solemnity Of love which for
bids his answering the elders attempt at
conversation save with simple, stupid
yeas and nays. Before the group is broken
for the night the aged man reaches for
the great Book, and with reverent air
reads the words of God, while all listen
in quiet, wondering faith.
Then, kneeling down, to Heavens eter-
nal King,
The saint, the father, and the husband
prayS,
And protfers up to Heav'n the warm re-
quest,
That He who stills the ravens clam rous
nest,
And decks the lily fair in flow'ry pride,
Would, in the way His wisdom sees the
best,
For them and for their little ones provide;
But chiefly in their hearts with grace di-
vine preside"
Well might Burns, fervid with the
thought of such sweet home life, eXclalm
in rapture that
"From scenes like these old Scott'a's gran
deur springs,
That makes her loved at home, reverb
abroad:
Princes and lords are but the breath OF
kings,
An honest mans the noblest work of
Godw
Honest men come only from honest
homes. The honest home is the home
where faith rules supreme. Destroy faith
and the home is lost. | warn you there
fore, in the sacred name of those who
freely poured out their blood for our fair
Southern homes, that you resist with con-
Stant watchful care whatever lnsldlOus
enemy threatens to enter your homes and
destroy that faith which is to the home
what breath is to the body.
| cannot make my meaning clearer than
BY recalling to you the words of that
matchless Southerner, Henry W. Grady,
who in 1881 wrote for his journal a pow
erful warning against the vast mass OF
so-called literature which was marshalling
itself "cither openly ON the side of skep-
ticiSm, or else treating religious sentiment
with a readiness of touch and lack OF
reverence hardly less dangerous Grady
says, The dread of the times, as l see it,
is this growing skepticism," so plainly
manifest in the tone and trend OF the
books that are pouring from the press.
What was true in 1881 is no less true, and
even more ominous, in 1901. One of the
most intelligent and experienced teachers
in North Carolina said to me last Satur-
day that it is hardly possible to take up a
single contemporary novel that does not
contain either masked or else an open
attack upon the Christian religion and its
holy principles. He is right. And yet
YOU fathers and mothers, whose parents,
with far less cause, taught you to beware
of novel reading-you let this mass OF
vicious stuff into your homes under the
pseudonym of culture" whereas warn
YOU solemnly that in so doing you are
poisoning the very fountains of home
life. Sherman, while cruel vandal, was
vet open and above board withal. Your
modern invader wraps himself in the de-
ceptive garb of an apostle Of light, but the
work he does is far worse than the work
of Sherman. He comes with the sweet
seductive notes of The Choir Invisible"
and teaches your pure girl to doubt the
wisdom of the sacred bond of marriage.
With the farcical and misleading title of
The Master Christian" this foe Of the
faith without which no home can be-,
poisons the mind of your child against
the holy church of Christ. No book
which bears the vulgar name of Marie
Corelli-let her sex blush for her lis fit
to enter decent Christian home. You
permit your daughters to spend hours
over the idealistic contemplation of silly
little fools like Janice Meredith" and
vet expect them to become strong and
faithful women. You allow your boys to
laugh at the sharp tricks of David Ha-
rum" whose only words for religion are
sneers, and yet expect them to grow into
honest and reverend men. You call this
extravaganza? | tell you that you can
no more expect your daughter to be vir-
tuous and your boy to be true while you
allow them to derour books which are
filled either with cOntcmptuous apathy or
else with a loud-voiced, positive antipathy
to the things that are pure and lovely
and of good report" than you can expect
to SOW wild onions in your fields and reap
corn.
l dare TO say that throughout this land
today there is growing tendency to dis
regard religion; q growing looseness of
relationship between young men and
young women; tendency towards i'm
modestv on the part of many young wo-
men, and of boldness on the part of young
men-in word, a loosening and disin-
tegration of faith; and lay much of the
blame for it on the shoulders of fathers
who would be willing to fight for their
homes in open battle, but who will not,
or do not, guard them against insidious
influences of evil, especially in the shape
of vicious literature masquerading under
the name of culture" Let our daughters
live and die, say I, with no other knowl-
edge save that of the loom and the kitchen
and the barn-yard rather than fill them
with the sort of knowledge that exuqes
from such masterpieces of mischief as
The Reign of Law" and all its motley
crew. 1t is going to do little good if you
Il