The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-10-28
RAnrp uTrrRANcrs.

tts% ID ~ tttAt AztthtsASAS VI thtC 8V4- pei who above all others should set examples Of moderation and charity. sometimes become utterly rabid in their utterances? For example, few days ago a minister in Philadelphia declared that if he could have his way he would re-estabiish the rack. the guiilotine and the stakss for biasphe- mers. How can a minister hope to make people better by asserting . desire to so back to the cruelties and inhumanity of the dark ages? Can he find anywhere in the teachings of Christ authority for the practice of worse than ssvagery? He is living several centuries too late. And here we find a Kansis City minister say- ing:
 The world is more cursed through the. books of today than blessed. If I ea eaeepans way ony tSe eSh Bible Would pr Se burned and great would be the result of removing dangerous literature from the the reach h., pf mankind sn h the Bible asl
 
 ture, and the themes are not those to corrupt the minds of both young and old. l myself am great reader. True. my reading has been more along the line of philosophy than anything else. and I denounce 1t all as source of corruption.
 Now, we do not believe that any right thinking person will dispute the good things this preacher says of the Bible. or undertake to minimize the good that it does to humanity. In fact, 1t may well be called "rhe Book" for in 1t is contained the law and the gospel for mans conduct on earth. but why deny that there is good in many other books? If this man. as he inti- mates. has been corrupted by reading philosophical works why did he read them? He had his Bible and could have stuck to it without interference. Nobody demanded or required that he should discard the best book of all and spend his time boring over volumes which he found to be "a source of cor ruption."
 we can hardly believe in the sanity of 8 man who seriously asserts that the world would be better of if all the books in it were burned except the Bible--and we Suppose he would also prohibit the publication of any more. There are bad books in the world now, as there have been since books were invented, but will this preacher assert that these are no good ones? win he assert that there are no bad ministers in the world, for that matterf To destroy the good in this world in order to rid ourbelves of all the bad would be a poor method of making the world better. In the words of The Kansas City Journal:
 It is hard to conceive of a recon ciling of this attitude with religion. ethics or moral philosophy. Could there be, in fact a conquest of the world for Christianity without other the gospels? Certainly there could be no secular education having in view the intellectual development of man
 
 poetry. What a bleak place this earth would be if mankind were denied ac- cess to that amazing storehouse of course, many will agree that some of the books of today and of other days should be eliminated from our libra vations whatever. He confesses that he had read along philosophical lines. yet he has not come to Bacon's view, "A little philosophy inclineth a mans mind % atheism, but depth in philoso- phy brtngeth mems minds about to re- ligfon."
 We need not go back to Bacon for sustaining arguments in favor of good books, for the proof is apparent to all who wish to see it. The millenial time may come when there will be nothing but good in the world but we much doubt if this Kansas City ranter lives to see it. and we are not sure that he would it in very we'll if he should happen to be on hand. He would bs a fly in the ointment.
 Just such radical utterances as these are bound to do harm whenever ut- tered and listened to. for there will always be some who will be influen6ed by them. The Philadelphia minister would send us back to ssvasery and the Kansas City specimen would re- mand us to the era Of darkness and ighorance. Neither is the right kind of man for a teacher of the people, and both are an Injury to the high calling they profess to represent. THE SERIOUSNESS OF THE ISSUE.
 The consumer gets little benefit from