Choice of Reading
219
Dangers in Reading Exciting Stories
What shall our children read? This is a serious question and one
that demands a serious answer. It troubles me to see in Sabbathkeep-
ing families periodicals and newspapers containing continued stories
which leave no impressions for good on the minds of children and
youth. I have watched those whose taste for fiction was thus cultivated.
They have had the privilege of listening to the truth, of becoming ac-
quainted with the reasons of our faith; but they have grown to mature
years destitute of true piety and practical godliness.
Readers of frivolous, exciting tales become unfitted for the du-
ties of practical life. They live in an unreal world. I have watched
children who have been allowed to make a practice of reading such
stories. Whether at home or abroad, they were restless, dreamy, unable
to converse except upon the most commonplace subjects. Religious
thought and conversation was entirely foreign to their minds. With
the cultivation of an appetite for sensational stories, the mental taste is
perverted, and the mind is not satisfied unless fed upon this unwhole-
some food. I can think of no more fitting name for those who indulge
in such reading than mental inebriates. Intemperate habits of reading
have an effect upon the brain similar to that which intemperate habits
of eating and drinking have upon the body
Before accepting the present truth, some had formed the habit of
novel reading. Upon uniting with the church, they made an effort to
overcome this habit. To place before this class reading similar to that
which they have discarded is like offering intoxicants to the inebriate.
Yielding to the temptation continually before them, they soon lose their
relish for solid reading. They have no interest in Bible study. Their
moral power becomes enfeebled. Sin appears less and less repulsive.
There is manifest an increasing unfaithfulness, a growing distaste for
life’s practical duties. As the mind becomes perverted, it is ready to
grasp any reading of a stimulating character. Thus the way is open for
Satan to bring the soul fully under his domination
243
Counsels to Parents, Teachers, and Students, 132-135
244
Testimonies for the Church 7:203