The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1914-04-18

In which they drag on miserable and
degraded lives, useless and worse than
useless to themselves and to others.
We have each of us our tastes. Some
like biography, others travel, others
again natural history, whilst for some
there is nothing so interesting as the
delineation of character, or the de-
scriptions of scenery which they find
in a good novel, or picture of times,
people, manners and customs different
from our own. Take what you like,
provided it be good and worthy of
your time and attention. You will
find such reading refreshes your mind,
and makes it reader for work after
ward thar if you had skinned hun
dred pages of a sensational story.
Reading as a recreation should be
taken like all recreation under GER
tain conditions and with moderation.
Such reading is an excellent test of
our power of self-control. 1t requires
no little moral courage to deny our
selves a book which in spite of warn
ing we are curious to read, book
much talked about, that every one
reads
Again it is no slight exercise of self
| control to determine the amount of
time we may give to light reading and
to close our book when the time is up.
The effort to allow an author when
the sense is obscure, the patience to
read and re-read noble passage till
it has sunk into mind and heart and
become a part of ourselves, all this
is excellent self-control.
Reading, then, as recreation-and to
many it is the most enjoyable of
affords ample oppor-
tunities for the exercise of self-re-
straint If we are wise, we shall i'm
prove these opportunities and try to
acquire early such tastes and method
in our intercourse with books as will
stand us in good stead in after-life.
1t may be well, perhaps, to say
here, that we are not necessarily de-
barred from reading book because
we foresee that here and there a pas
sage may suggest what might be dan
gerous. Provided we read-not for
the qualification of unwholesome curl
osity, but from good motive, for the
useful information we shall find, for
the beauty of style, or even for the
| innocent amusement book affords,
| having always a general resolve to
turn quietly from anything harmful
without letting our mind dwell upon
it, we may read it without difficulty.
Unless this were sound principle to
act upon, we would never open a book
with safety.
The rule does not apply to books
that are dangerous to faith or morals
that is, to what we must believe
and what we must do to keep the
Commandments of God. Such books
we are bound to avoid, and it is the
duty of those in charge of us to warn
us against them. This done, the re-
sponsibility of what we do rests with
ourselves. If we neglect, we can do
so, for our will is free. But we have
the solemn warning of the Holy Ghost
Himself: "He that loveth danger
shall perish in it, (Ecc. i. 3D. and in
our mother Eve sad example of
the misery one act Of curiosity may
entail. Never read books that make
you distrust the Church, her teaching,
or her practices. 1t should be quite
Unnecessary, hope, to add, that med
ical books, and the indiscriminate
reading of encyclopedias news
papers, should not be followed.
Among your favorite books will be
numbered, hope, the Holy Scripture,
especially the Gospels, the Lives Of
the Saints, and of those noble follow
ers of Christ and the Saints, the men
and women of our own times who have
sanctifed themselves in the same sta
ton and by the same duties that have
fallen to our lot, who have battled
with our difficulties and temptations,
used well our opportunities, and led