Pure Literature | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Nov 11, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 43.

Pure Literature.

IN the Elmira penitentiary, a newspaper is published, called The Summary, which excludes all records of crime, and epitomizes public news without scandal or sensationalism. The daily papers are excluded from the prison lest they incite to crime by their criminal records.

Here is food for thought. The directors of this prison evidently recognize the fact that the surest way to stop a fire is to withdraw the fuel from it. Who can question the wisdom of their action? To cure the disease it is necessary to remove the cause.

It is safe to say that the frightful increase of crime is due in a large measure to the current literature of the times. Not satisfied with the records of crime and sensations recorded in our daily newspapers, papers devoted exclusively to such literature are circulated, and read by hundreds of thousands. The danger from this source has become so alarming that some of our States are legislating against the introduction and sale within their borders of papers devoted to the records of crime. Kansas City and other of our large cities have taken similar steps. The proprietors of these papers do not willingly submit to have their business destroyed in this way, but have brought suits in the courts to test the legality of these enactments. What the result will be we cannot easily foretell. Men are controlled by appetite, and, as long as they can obtain it, they will feed their depraved minds on the putrid filth of our social life. It is to be hoped however that the moral sentiment of our country may become so aroused to the evil, that these efforts to check it may be warmly applauded and heartily sustained.

We are living in "perilous times." Dangers are thickening all around us. Youth is the critical period of life—the formative period. The weal or woe of the individual depends largely on the bent the mind receives at this time. What a responsibility rests upon parents and teachers to see that those young people placed under their care receive the right mould.

Tastes for criminal literature are often acquired by children of professedly Christian parents. A son or daughter has but little taste for reading. To arouse in the child a love of literature a sensational novel or a paper containing a sensational love story is placed in his hands. The effect is magical. It is like the first drink to one born with an appetite for liquor, the appetite becomes aroused, not for good reading, but for more of the same kind. It continues to indulge until the mind is debauched and the soul ruined. Many parents have caused the downfall of their own children, by suffering them to read and hear of sensations and crimes.

What is not good enough for a prison is certainly unfit for the family circle. Guard your children's reading with jealous care. Until their tastes are fully established suffer them not to indulge in promiscuous reading, but direct their minds in the channel of thought you would have them pursue. Select books and papers for them that are free from suspicion, and carefully guard the associations of your children, if you would have them develop into pure and noble men and women.—Students' Workshop.