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The Ministry of Healing
falsehood, and they love and cling to deception that means ruin to
the soul.
There are works of fiction that were written for the purpose of
teaching truth or exposing some great evil. Some of these works
have accomplished good. Yet they have also wrought untold harm.
They contain statements and highly wrought pen pictures that excite
the imagination and give rise to a train of thought which is full
of danger, especially to the youth. The scenes described are lived
over and over again in their thoughts. Such reading unfits the mind
for usefulness and disqualifies it for spiritual exercise. It destroys
interest in the Bible. Heavenly things find little place in the thoughts.
As the mind dwells upon the scenes of impurity portrayed, passion
is aroused, and the end is sin.
Even fiction which contains no suggestion of impurity, and which
may be intended to teach excellent principles, is harmful. It en-
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courages the habit of hasty and superficial reading merely for the
story. Thus it tends to destroy the power of connected and vigorous
thought; it unfits the soul to contemplate the great problems of duty
and destiny.
By fostering love for mere amusement, the reading of fiction
creates a distaste for life’s practical duties. Through its exciting,
intoxicating power it is not infrequently a cause of both mental
and physical disease. Many a miserable, neglected home, many a
lifelong invalid, many an inmate of the insane asylum, has become
such through the habit of novel reading.
It is often urged that in order to win the youth from sensational
or worthless literature, we should supply them with a better class
of fiction. This is like trying to cure the drunkard by giving him, in
the place of whisky or brandy, the milder intoxicants, such as wine,
beer, or cider. The use of these would continually foster the appetite
for stronger stimulants. The only safety for the inebriate, and the
only safeguard for the temperate man, is total abstinence. For the
lover of fiction the same rule holds true. Total abstinence is his only
safety.