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GIRLS AND THE ‘BOOKS THEN READ
The eminent divine, Dr. Len
Broughton, some time ago in a sermon
spoke through the columns of this
paper about the greatly needed re
form in woman’s dress, and how
lavish display on the part of the rich
tended to fill the hearts of those less
fortunate full of envy and malice and
other passions which deteriorate char
acter. This is true, but it seems to
me that the greatest need of reform
today lies in our reading matter, in
the suppression of the sex-problem
erotic novels which are ruining the
souls and minds of our young people.
A conversation overheard on the
car a few days ago between two young
school girls, hardly more than chil,
dren, opened my eyes to this crying
need, and convinced me that the good
women of our land, those who wish to
keep inviolate the sanctity of th£
home, should begin a crusade against,
the immoral books flooding the coun
try. One vile book after another was
discussed, and enthused over and pro
nounced to be “just grand,” “simply
too sweet for anything,” until I was
sick at listening, and I asked myself
what kind of mothers must these well
dressed, well-fed young girls have that
they should be so neglectful of their
daughters’ moral welfare.
Across the street from me there
lives a young girl with a face like
an angel, dainty and sweet and lov
able; but the other day I -caught her
in the act of reading a vile book, and
she confessed to me this was not the
first one she had read, but she had
procured many of this kind from a
public circulating library, and that
she found them “rather interesting.”
When I lectured her, she said that
they made no impression on her mind,
but were forgotten as soon as read.
This she believed to be true, but as
we become like the people with whom
we associate, so we are elevated or
A WARNING INVITATION.
April 24, 1910.
Matt. 11:20-30.
Tillie, 28 A. D.
Place, Capernaum.
GOLDEN TEXT—“Come unto me,
all ye that labor and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest.” —Matt. 11:28.
SUGGESTIVE THOUGHTS.
What shall I do?
I. Repent. Vs. 20 to 24.
It is sinful to do wrong, but a great
er sin not to repent of the wrong
done. The more we see and learn
of the works of God, the greater the
reason for repentance. (Rom. 2:4;
Acts 17:30 and 31.) The more we
know and the better we understand,
the more strictly we will be judged.
Chora zin and Bethsaida had wit
nessed the marvellous works of
Jesus —works that proved Him to be
the Messiah and that should have
brought, them to repentance and led
them to accept Christ as the Lord and
Saviour. They closed their eyes to
the truth, hardened their hearts and
would not repent, and therefore He
that came to save them had to con
demn them. All that accept Christ
will receive eternal life all that re
ject Him will be condemned to eter
nal punishment. These cities had
greater light than Sodom, therefore
their sin was greater. Our ct.iies
have greater light than Chorazin and
lowered by the books we read. In the
very nature of things an habitual
reader of questionable literature
must in the long run absorb some
of their vile teachings in their own
moral nature. And I thought as I
looked at the young girl with her
sweet, innocent face, how soon such
literature would brush the innocence
from her soul, as the bloom is brushed
from the side of a peach. It was
enough to make one weep, the indif
ference she showed about the matter.
“It was the fashion,” she said, “and
she was not the only one who read
them,” she added in a it’s-none-of
your-business tone.
Few people realize what a menace
this problem is becoming. In these
novels there is no subject pertaining
to illegal sex-relations left untouched.
For ages we have been taught by our
grand old mothers that the marriage
law is the cause and basis of civiliza
tion, and that any infringement of
this law must at all times be consid
ered a blow at the welfare of a nation.
We have been taught to regard a
violator of this law as a pariah, a mor
al leper, something to be shunned, but
the teachings of our grandmothers is
no longer regarded as sacred, and it
seems all our moral outlook is to be
changed if" the books bearing the
names of respectable (?) publishers
are to be allowed free circulation,
pointing out the way of corruption to
the eager eyes of our young people.
In these “novels that smell to
heaven,” as one brilliant editorial
writer has placed them, the heroine is
generally a woman of no morals, but
great beauty of person, and the vile
author presents her to the reader as
the personification of all the virtues,
the more interesting for her esca
pades. Not infrequently she is chosen
from the underworld, and scenes and
incidents are presented which should
SUNDA Y SCHOOL LESSON
Bethsaida, therefore their condemna
tion will be greater. What is true of
cities is also true of the individual.
The greater the light, the greatei- the
sin. All should repent for the follow
ing reasons:
Ist. All have sinned. (Rom. 2:23.)
2nd. We are commanded to repent.
(Acts 2:38.)
3rd. All will perish unless they re
pent. (Luke 13:3.)
4th. The condemnation will be
greater than if we had npt known the
way of truth. (2-Peter 2:21 and Heb.
10:28, 29.)
11. Learn of Jesus. Vs. 25 to 30.
To know God we must be taught of
God. The world, by its wisdom, can
not know God. If we rest upon the
wisdom and understanding of man,
the truth will be hidden from us,
(Vs. 25 and 26; 1 Cor. 18:29.) If we
renounce our wisdom and come to
Jesus and ask Him, He will give us
wisdom and reveal to us God and
His truth. (V. 27; James 1:5; 1 Cor.
2:6 to 10; 1 Cor. 3:18 and 20.)
Life is a school and not a play
ground. God wants us to be cheerful
and happy learners in this school of
life. Christ is the great Teacher sent
from God, and if we wish to know
about the things of the Kingdom, we
must go to our Teacher and ask of
Him. He knows all things and will
gladly teach us, if we will surrender
ourselves to be taught of God. To
be taught of God we must use the
The Golden Age for April 14, 1910.
JULIA CORN AN TAIT.
never find print. “Realism” is the
excuse of these unprincipled scrib
blers—“painting life as it is.” Such,
no doubt ,does happen in real life, but
why impress such conditions on the
unformed character of an innocent
but inquisitive boy or girl, put it in
language for them to see and won
der, and, as water wears the stone
away, at last condone, perhaps adopt?
It is true great romances, which are
now classics, have been written
wherein the question of sex relations
was handled, but not with rude hands.
It takes the brain and pen of a mas
ter for these subjects, and in these
books, such as “The Scarlet Letter,”
“Les Miserables” and "Tess o’ the
D’Urbervilles,” the world is taught
that the virtue of woman and the
honor of man must be preserved im
maculate, else dire results will follow.
Some of the books now on the mar
ket were no doubt written by men
and women more vile than their own
heroes and heroines, for out of the
abundance of the heart the pen
writes, even as the tongue speaks,
and no true man or woman could pro
duce filth for gain any more than
water can rise higher than its source.
It is not the novels of the Bertha
Clay type, silly as these are in the
plot and incident, poor as they are in
literary value, that will stain the
purity of the young girls whose un
educated minds demand them. The
books doing the mischief are those
that cost not less than one dollar and
a half and look so sanctimonious
from the outside. For a few cents a
day they are freely circulated by the
large department stores and circulat
ing libraries of every city, and they
carry their poison into the homes'of
the poor as well as the rich. In the
young there is always an innate lik
ing for the hidden, the secret things
of life, and literature of this class
Sty 2?. Lacy Hoge.
text books that He has prescribed for
His school. The first and most im
portant book is the Bible. If we wiil
carefully study this book and when
we come to things we do not under
stand ask Christ for the needed wis
dom, He will give it. Sorrow, be
reavements, sickness and experience
are some of the books used in Christ’s
school. In all these books we will
find many thing we do not quite un
derstand, but remember that our
great Teacher understands them all,
and will gladly explain them to us if
we will take them in earnest prayer
to Him. Learn of Jesus what He
would have you do. Learn of Him the
greatness of His work. Learn of
Him the fullness of His joy. Learn
of Him the blessedness of His rest.
111. Go to Jesus for rest. Vs. 28 to
29.
In this lesson Jesus tells of two
rests. The first is given, the second
is found. Let us consider these words
and follow His teaching and get both
of the rests. The conditions upon
which the first rest is given are,
first. “All that labor and are heavy
laden.’’ This means all that, have a
burden—no matter what the burden
is. It may be sin, remorse, doubt,
sorrow, sickness or anything else. If
it burdens you, then you are one of
the “all” invited to come. Second,
"Come unto me.” Come to Jesus —
not to the priest, or church, or creed,
or great theologian. These may hin-
stimulates their imagination often to
their undoing.
The young woman who presides at
the counter of one of these circulating
libraries said to me not long since:
“Os course they are naughty, these
books; but the wealthiest people in
the city demand them. One lady told
me that I should not allow young girls
to take them out, but I am instructed
to lend them to all who will pay the
price, and I can not see where I am
to blame.” Surely there is some rem
edy for this evil. It is a reading age,
and it. is conceded that its literature
molds the mind and thought of a peo
ple. Oh, then, how lofty will be the
thought and mind of the next genera
tion!
Reform should begin at once along
this line, and men and women who
would make better plough-boys and
washerwomen than they would writ
ers should not. be allowed, for a few
paltry dollars, to corrupt the minds
of those to whom we are to leave the
precious legacy of a. nation’s moral
happiness and prosperity. “Some
books are to be tasted, some swal
lowed, some chewed and some di
gested,” said Bacon, and had he fore
seen the decadence of our literature,
he no doubt would have added, “And
some are to be left alone.”
“The pleasant world of books” —
how dear a world it is! This land of
the imagination—what happiness,
what joy it brings! But how easily it
can become a curse to all mankind!
Surely the good old writers of bygone
books, romances of pure love and high
honor, would shudder in their graves
if they knew that such writers as
Elinor Glyn and Victoria Cross had
dared enter the sacred field of letters,
to be classed as “literatteurs,” writers
of the most popular fiction of today.
Oh, shades of Dickens, Goldsmith,
Read, deliver us!
der you. Do as the Master says—
“ Come unto me.” Third, “I will give
you rest.” You don’t have to buy it
or do some great thing to receive this
rest. Just come to Jesus, bringing
that which burdens you, and He will
“give” you rest. The condiUons for
receiving the second rest are very
different from the first. The Master
says, “Take my yoke upon you.” Sur
render to Jesus and go where He
wants you to go and say what He
you to say, do what He wants
you to do, and be what He wants you
to be, and you will find this second
rest. We can never have this except
through perfect submission to our
Lord.
“Perfect submission, all is at rest;
I in my Saviour am happy and blest;
Watching and waiting, lookmg above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His
love.
“Perfect submission, perfect delight,
Visions of rapture now burst on my
sight;
Angels, descending, bring from above
Echoes ot mercy, whispers of love.”
IV. Learn lessons from God’s deal
ings with others.
The Master here teaches us the les
son of perfect trust as the way of
perfect peace. Paul, in his letter to
the Philippians, has, in different
words, taught the same great truth.
He says, "Be careful for nothing, but
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