THE SERPENT OF SERPENTS; OR,
THE BIBLE AND THE FICTITIOUS.
“How shall I speak thee, or thy power address?
Thou god of idolatry, the Press!
Like Eden’s dread probationary tree—
Knowledge of good and evil is from thee!” We should search the Scriptures, hide them in our hearts, to destroy the relish (if we have it), for the light, popular, fascinating literature, the mixed publications that are now sweeping over the land, more desolating than the frogs, lice, and locusts of Egypt. Do novel-readers read the Bible?—love it, embrace it, practice it? Is the Bible delightful to them? sweet to their taste as honey and the honeycomb? Do they make the Bible their counsel, their guide, their lamp, and their light? meditate on it day and night? These light, popular, fictitious readings, unfit the mind for devotion and Bible-reading. Who ever knew a novel-reader, or one spending whole hours poring over the love tales of Harper, Godey, Peterson, Arthur, Leslie, The New York Ledger, the comicals, and the other mixed publications of a similar character, a diligent student of the Bible, a lover of prayer, a consistent follower of Jesus Christ? Was such a thing ever? “Can two walk together except they be agreed?” “Can any one serve two masters?” “He that is not for me is against me,” says Christ. A lover of God’s book, dictated by the Holy Spirit, and meanwhile pore over the emanations of corrupt, licentious hearts! The one is as opposite to the other as light is from darkness, Heaven and hell! The one is from above, the other beneath—“earthly, sensual, devilish.” Who are the writers of these love-stories, fictitious tales, novels, romances, fatal tragedies, horrid scenes of rape, blood and murder, that grace the pages of these popular weeklies and monthlies? With few exceptions, are they not known to be persons lax in principle and loose in life? “As is the tree, so is the fruit.” “Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?” “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” “Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?” “Evil communications corrupt good manners.” These popular works of fiction are the most potent engines the Devil ever planted upon the earth, to undermine the principles of virtue, and subvert the morality of the Bible. They drive the individuals from the sanctuary, close the Bible, alienate the heart from God, and plunge the soul into temporal ruin and eternal death! The habit grows with our growth, and if permitted to run on, will pollute the soul even in the world to come.—Reader, beloved, do you love the Bible? hide it in your heart, meditate on it day and night? If you are the Lord’s in very deed, dead to sin and alive to God, the word of the Lord will be precious; more precious than honey and the honeycomb. Will you then have delight in these fascinating, popular monthlies and weeklies? the mixed publications, intermingled with the bitter and the sweet, the romance and the silly love-tale? Take the Bible for your guide, your hope, your joy, you lose all relish for novels, nonsensical readings; they become insipid, disgusting, abhorrent. When the Bible is the man of your counsel, and Christ is formed in your soul the hope of glory, you look upon these light, frothy publications in their true light, as sugar-coated poisons, as serpents in the grass; you spurn them as dross, the babblings of the pit. The Bible is not only the text-book, but the test-book; it searches the heart, tries the reins. Beware, ye novel-readers, beware, lest ye “be weighed in the balance and found wanting.” Examine yourselves. Know ye not yourselves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except that ye be reprobates? Again, if the Bible is to you what it ought to be, and must be, to qualify you for the realms of light and glory, you lose all relish and delight for worldly pleasures, “foolish talking and jesting,” the gay party, the ball-room, the theatre, all games of chance, chess, checker, the card-table—all that is contrary to God’s will, justice, mercy, and truth.” “If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” “Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever, therefore, will be a friend of the world, is the enemy of God.” James, iv, 4. “Why not live as God would have you?”
Why not do his blessed will?
Break the bonds of sin forever,
Strive your duty to fulfill!” Author of “Home Thrusts.”