Food for the Mind
89
in their influence for good over others; but wrong habits, when once
established, exercise a despotic power and bring minds into bondage.
If you had never read one word in these books [by infidel authors]
you would today be far better able to comprehend that Book which,
above all other books, is worthy to be studied and which gives the only
correct ideas regarding higher education.—
Testimonies for the Church
6:162
(1900).
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Superficial Reading Produces Diseased Imagination—There
are many of our youth whom God has endowed with superior ca-
pabilities. He has given them the very best of talents; but their powers
have been enervated, their minds confused and enfeebled, and for years
they have made no growth in grace and in a knowledge of the reasons
of our faith, because they have gratified a taste for story reading. They
have as much difficulty to control the appetite for such superficial
reading as the drunkard has to control his appetite for intoxicating
drink.
These might today be connected with our publishing houses and
be efficient workers to keep books, prepare copy for the press, or to
read proof; but their talents have been perverted until they are mental
dyspeptics, and consequently are unfitted for a responsible position
anywhere. The imagination is diseased. They live an unreal life. They
are unfitted for the practical duties of life; and that which is the most
sad and discouraging is that they have lost all relish for solid reading.
They have become infatuated and charmed with just such food for
the mind as the intensely exciting stories contained in Uncle Tom’s
Cabin. That book did good in its day to those who needed an awakening
in regard to their false ideas of slavery; but we are standing upon the
very borders of the eternal world, where such stories are not needed
in the preparation for eternal life.—
Testimonies for the Church 5:518,
519
(1889).
Books That Enfeeble the Mind—Love stories and frivolous, ex-
citing tales constitute another class of books that is a curse to every
reader. The author may attach a good moral and all through his work
may weave religious sentiments, yet in most cases Satan is but clothed
in angel robes the more effectually to deceive and allure. The mind
is affected in a great degree by that upon which it feeds. The readers
of frivolous, exciting tales become unfitted for the duties lying be-
fore them. They live an unreal life and have no desire to search the
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