Novel Reading and Theatrical Plays by M. M. MARTINSON, M. D.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 13, 1908

Novel Reading and Theatrical Plays

By M. M. MARTINSON, M. D.

M. M. MARTINSON, M. D.

The quality of literature read by our youth determines their mental and moral growth or their mental and moral decay and ruin. Everything that does not elevate our minds and increase our capacity for pure thoughts, leaves disease spots on our delicate brain cells. When we stimulate the physiological processes of the brain in a certain direction, we must expect it to work in the capacity for which it was trained. The thoughts, even though they are not uttered, are able to leave a path over which other brain impressions can travel.

Novels and story papers lying about our homes where our children can get them, are making mental inebriates of them. Such reading is enticing their minds from higher thoughts, and is taking away the love for reading the Bible. Of what use to us is the gossip of our daily papers with their scandals, murders, and drunkenness? They are parasites of evil that gnaw at the lives of our youth. These rehearsals of evil are making lasting impressions upon the plastic minds of our developing youth, and wear rather than strengthen the resisting powers of maturity.

The moral sensibilities are paralyzed by the sensational writings inspired by Satan. They fill the heart with corruption, so that it is easy to yield to temptation. When Satan induces young men and women to spend their hours in novel reading, he has them in the game of life, and he is almost sure to win; for it soon becomes a disease that only the power of God can cure. The youth who burns the midnight oil, and perhaps even spends the sacred hours of the Sabbath, reading the dross of the twentieth century, is on the road to ruin, as such a course weakens him physically, mentally, and spiritually. We have enough to do in training ourselves to resist the temptations of this present evil age without boldly venturing on Satan's ground.

All these fanciful thoughts that please the natural mind are of satanic origin. So are the fascinating theatrical plays. One may ask, Is there not some good in these plays and this fanciful reading? Whatever good may be there is there as a lure only. The foundation of the whole undertaking is corrupt. The source is evil, and God will not go with us to such places. The angels of heaven are not at your side when you are voluntarily on Satan's ground.

The youth who worships at the shrine of a perverted appetite of body and mind, is an idolater. He disregards nature's laws, and reaps a confused brain and an irritable temper. He does not and can not enjoy the pure food that will give health and life to the body and mind. The poison of fiction is a poison that does not kill at once, but weans the soul from prayer and the love of God. The great bulk of the fiction of to-day is unholy in its inspiration, and only evil in its results. The fascinating plays that excite the imaginations and arouse unholy passions, are also dictated by the unholy one.

To-day, it is impossible to please the entertainment-hungry public with the real rational amusements. They are satisfied with nothing but the artificial, the far fetched, the speculative, the unreal. It is easier to build air-castles than real castles. Our imaginations can readily frame something that is more magnificent, fanciful, and more enticing than the real. The imagination can supply all sorts of attractions when there is no knowledge of the facts to keep the imagination in check. If we can not read that which is real and points us to God, we ought to keep our minds silent. Satan is attracting us in new and untrodden ways, and if he can leave imprints on our delicate minds that will live and bear seed and yield a crop later, he is pleased. If you have a desire to do right, shut the windows of your mind against that which is evil. The life will be a march and a battle, but remember that transgression has almost reached its limit; the end is very near.

Do you realize that God wishes to give you his Spirit that your mind may be free from this unreal and evil age? The Lord is calling for self-denying workers, whom he can use as examples to stand in this evil day. Do you realize there is evil in the land? Are you associating with those whose minds are benumbed by evil? Do you know that you are standing on the very border of the eternal world? So long as the mind is “doped” with fanciful stories of the present evil world, we must not think that we are being fitted to enter heaven.

If you have spent the past in imaginations, begin now and place yourself where you can succeed. Study that which is real. Let others help you. Burn everything that will tempt you, and do not associate yourself with those whose minds are evil.

Graysville, Tenn.