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they have called into being, sustained by their contributions, and made their depository? Will it be said that the society is unable to resist the call for exciting and amusing stories, and must compete with general publishers in supplying books that will sell? Then why do we longer need the society? But might not the churches enable the society to resist the tide and establish a correct and wholesome taste for reading by purchasing only such books as could be fully endorsed by the most efficient, careful, and rigid board of managers? Is the piety of the present day so weak in resistance as to afford no hope that the churches, coöperating with the society, would be able to lift up an efficient standard against the prevailing evil? We do not believe it. The great rebellion against constitutional truth must and shall be broken. What we need is, that attention be roused and fixed on the subject; and that both the dangers and the remedy be clearly pointed out. As with the officers of an army, who must give place to others if they fail of meeting the demands of their position, so in Sabbath-school literature, failure is fatal, and success is of more consequence infinitely than that our boards be filled with timid, harmless, popular men, even though they may have large societies and patronage to bring with them. Such men may answer well enough in times of peace and safety; but when danger comes, the salvation of the cause demands self-sacrificing courage and efficiency.

It is easy to see that the fault may belong to both the society and the churches. In most coöperative efforts, wrong, when it exists, is mutual. "Like people, like priest." Here is a large congregation with an unusually large proportion of young people. With great liberality the church determines to secure the purest, most religiously useful, and attractive Sabbath-school library that is possible. They do not believe in the dignity of dulness, and so their committee exclude most that is dry, heavy, and prolix, on the one hand, as well as most that is flashy and fictitious on the other. After large outlay of means, and great pains and care in selecting with reference to the wants of both scholars and teachers, it is found, in a little time, that the library is not generally used. The best books stand on the shelves from week to week unread. What now is to be done? Let us suppose that instead of setting themselves diligently to

the task of correcting the dangerous taste, and stimulating interest in those books which are of greatest value, thus nipping the evil in the bud, the church yield to the notion that their library must be changed for one that is written more in the spicy and extravagant style of modern light literature, that will be read, will carry its own weight, and also prove a decided attraction to the school. Say the committee, our children and youth will not eat plain and wholesome food, therefore we will furnish them highly seasoned and stimulating viands. If we do not remove the plain loaf altogether, we will place by the side of it the attractive confectionery, and let our children take their choice. Often the committee have not the time or the patience to make a careful examination of the merits of each and all the books to be purchased. So they pack up their carefully and conscientiously selected library and return with it to the depository, requesting that it be exchanged for books that will be read. They add, we must have as attractive a library as our neighboring churches, or we shall lose our scholars and our congregation.

Now comes the temptation to the society: shall they be firm and exert just the conservative influence which is needed, and for which they are appointed? Or will they fall back upon rum-sellers' plea; they will have these books, somebody will sell them, and we can best guard against abuses? It is an age of compliance and compromises. Puritan firmness and strictness is at a discount. Let us suppose that instead of answering, we cannot comply with your demand. This is just the object for which we have our organization and our hold on the churches for support, to secure that only unexceptionable and positively good books shall be read by our schools. The fault is with the parents and teachers of your congregation. You have a great work to do at home and in connection with just such books as these, and if you fail to do it you will drift out upon a stormy sea, as sure as effect follows cause or darkness the setting sun. Instead of saying this, we will suppose the officers of the society make a compromise. They propose to open the door (and when once open, even a little, it will prove like the rat-hole in the Holland dikes) to religious stories, or romances, with various caveats, apologies, and protestations of

truthfulness. Or what is just as bad, if not worse, they will weave the desired fiction around a basis of facts in such a way that the children cannot tell when they are reading fact and when fiction. Like the ancient oracles, it will be equivocal, and the children may call it romance and the parents call it truth, and so both be reconciled to it. Even the plainest matters of fact shall be shrouded in mystery, or bedizened with highly-wrought pictures. It shall open with a new grave in a strange, dark forest. It shall weave in plenty of mystery and moonlight, it shall borrow modestly the drapery of the theatre, and hint of love and marriage, as in the fashionable novel. And as for the other desired books which they clearly cannot publish, they will send out for them to all the irresponsible publishers, and thus return to the committee a large variety from which to select, adding the hope that the reading of a few of their best books may possibly be secured.

Look now at the wrong and injury done by and to both parties. The churches will soon come to say, there is not much difference between the books of the society and those of other publishers. At least there is no safety in trusting to their selection, for they send us as many kinds as the animals, “clean and unclean," that entered the ark. We might as well buy at one place as another, and if we are to have novels let us have the genuine. While the church committee, carrying home their miscellaneous and attractive library, find it sufficiently sought after indeed; but they also soon find that they have made every other religious instrumentality dull to the younger portion of their congregation. The Bible is a very tame book. The plain and honest preaching of the gospel is insipid and tedious. Family catechetical and biblical instruction is no longer tolerable. The children, one here and another there, are absorbed in devouring the last and most stirring religious tales that the weary superintendent in his weekly search could obtain. And, in no long time, the young people of the congregation who have now fully taken the reins and whip into their own hands, rise up and demand a style of preaching, of concerts, prayer-meetings, and all things, to correspond with their new and brilliant Sabbath-school literature. It will also be found, as in the use of intoxicating drinks, that the exciting element must be gradually

increased until the insatiable appetite is formed for the whole intoxicating flood of demoralizing romance.

When we consider who the readers of our Sabbath-school literature are, we cannot easily exaggerate the evils under which we are laboring. They are the dependence of all our missionary and benevolent organizations for the next generation, a generation on which are to fall the responsibilities of perhaps the most important and critical period of the world's existence. And it is because we appreciate the good and great work which Sabbath-schools are to accomplish, that we are so jealous of this incoming tide of evil. These readers are now in the impressible and formative period of character. "Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined." Says Archbishop Whately, "As hardly anything can accidentally touch the soft clay without stamping its mark on it, so, hardly any reading can interest a child without contributing in some degree, though the book itself be afterwards totally forgotten, to form the character; and the parents, therefore, who, merely requiring from him a certain course of study, pay little or no attention to storybooks, are educating him they know not how." And in another place the same distinguished author adds: "It is very important to warn all readers of the influence likely to be exercised in the formation of their opinions, indirectly, and by works not professedly argumentative, such as poems and tales. Fletcher, of Saltoun, said he would let any one have the making of the laws of a country, if he might have the making of their ballads." As in the four seasons there is but one sowing time, so life's spring-time is to decide what shall be the summer growth, the autumn harvest, and the winter experience. Preaching to adults, fearful as is the responsibility, may be of less consequence than the moral instruction and guidance of the young. We were told of a sceptical leader of a choir who boasted that with the tune after sermon he could neutralize the best discourse. Beyond question a perverted taste for reading formed in youth is likely to prove a fatal mistake, rendering all after efforts of parents and ministers futile. Worthless and bad books are fully as pernicious as are worthless and bad companions for our children.

Shall, then, the publication of our Sabbath-school literature

be left to irresponsible and speculating book-traders? Shall the men or the societies of surpassing advertising abilities, that can fill their shelves with the most salable and highly-wrought tales and pictures, supply the books for our Sabbath-schools? Shall the writers of our Sabbath-school books be in any cases those who could write nothing else, or who think the great object is to dilute the gospel and artfully conceal two grains of wheat in three bushels of chaff? After all our boasted advance in general education, shall we treat our Sabbath-school children and youth as if they were mere babies that could understand or would be interested in little but prattle and twattle? Shall a prime object of the library be to excite attention and compete with promiscuous town libraries for readers, just as some noisy superintendents seem to think the great object of the Sabbathschool concert of prayer is to gather a crowd and have a grand time? Shall we allow our question-books to be prepared by goodish men with high pretensions founded on higher-life views, or men with large professions of charity based upon "union and "liberal" tendencies? Shall our hymn and tune books be compiled by the person who can give the best dramatic effect to an entertainment?

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We are not to suppose the managers of Sabbath-schools to be always fully competent to select only the good from a mass of doggerel and rubbish placed in their hands. Think of the tremendous spiritual effect when, of a sudden, the singing comes to a dead pause while a faint strain of voices is heard from some ante-room or from the horse-shed, sometimes called the "stovepipe echo"; everybody begins to wonder who, where, and what it is. Is it really angels coming over the place as once over Bethlehem? But the more they think of it the better they become satisfied that the occasion does not call for it and it is not; and soon their expression of breathless amazement is turned into sardonic smiles of disgust at being trifled with. If any one has come to that school or meeting with the purpose of presenting serious truth, he now makes up his mind that he will not be heard unless he can sugar-coat and season after the highest French method; and so the sweetening and spicing goes on increasing in each exercise to the end of the service. At four or five successive Sabbath-school concerts we have

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