p. 74 | NOVEL-READING by Levi Turney

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 9, 1876

NOVEL-READING

By Levi Turney

There is a lamentable practice prevailing among a certain class of Sabbath-keepers, which, it seems to me, is sure destruction to spirituality (if there is any in such to destroy) and a very poor way of preparing for the solemn and decisive scenes of the Judgment. It is true some of these persons do not belong to the church, yet they pass among the world’s people as samples of the denomination. I mean the practice of spending the sacred hours of the Sabbath in reading irreligious literature, such as magazines and novels, some of which bear no better title than “Roughing It, by Mark Twain.”

When such persons are conversed with upon the subject, they will argue that there is a great deal of good reading in such books, and that few novels are written from which some moral cannot be drawn. This is a poor excuse. They do not read for the good they may get, but for the gratification of the carnal mind, which “is enmity against God.” Rom. 8 : 7.

It is also urged that there is no harm in reading stories if the Bible is not neglected; but how can they be read without neglecting it? The Bible cannot be read too much. In such cases the stories generally take the preference. The fact is, the blessed Book is loved the least. It is not said of Christ that he went about doing no harm, but that “he went about doing good.”

I wonder how such persons expect to “grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,” 2 Pet. 3 : 18; or when they expect to be able to give an answer to every one that asketh them a reason of the hope that is within them with meekness and fear, 1 Pet. 3 : 15; or how they think they will ever attain “unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” Eph. 4 : 13.

Oh, that all such may see their danger, and flee from it, before it is too late.

LEVI TURNEY.