Shunning Vileness

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 18, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 11.

Shunning Vileness.

A YOUNG neighbor called one evening to spend an hour with an English peasant family. In the conversation that followed, he made allusion to a horrible crime that recently had been committed in an adjacent town, and pulled a newspaper out of his pocket to read the details. But he had not finished the first sentence before the father stopped him.

“We’ll have no more of that here,” he said. “Why not?” inquired the young man. “It is true.”

But the peasant was not a man to waste words. The silence that ensued was more significant than any reply could have been. It was broken by the low, sweet voice of an invalid daughter, who sat by the fireside propped up by pillows in an easy chair.

“He that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil, he shall dwell on high.”

The rebuke was not lost upon the young man, and an unforgotten scene was vividly present to the mind of another daughter, when, after years of service, she was promoted to the housekeeper’s place in an aristocratic home, and saw the under-servants habitually reading papers that published all the particulars of wickedness. Pained at the evidences of a low and mischievous taste, the pure-minded girl succeeded in shaming the curiosity that craved such reading, and before long her influence banished every objectionable paper from the house, and supplied the servants with mental entertainment that was wholesome and clean.

“He shall dwell on high.” How many who expect that promise for themselves forget to shut their eyes from seeing evil or things which suggest vileness? The rewards that conclude the divine beatitudes are rewards in kind; the consummation of a course already begun. It is the high-minded who shall dwell on high. The men and women are comparatively few—and those of mature age and purity of culture—whom the interests of philanthropy (or any other necessity) compel to be very familiar with the facts of depravity and vice. The great majority of mankind have no call to study the disgusting details. The extent to which this is done, however, is deplorable. Too many young men’s rooms could reveal proofs of this low indulgence. And we are afraid the same will have to be said of some of the young men’s sisters. Young ladies will not, of course, be seen buying criminal newspapers at the news-stands, but what shall we think of those who habitually steal the reading of them? A young lady in Baltimore was recently discovered by her promised husband eagerly perusing a disreputable newspaper which she had stolen from her brother’s room. He may not have been guiltless himself; but the sight of the woman he loved feasting on moral filth sickened him, and he went away to come back no more.

We shun evil effectually only when we shun all unnecessary acquaintance with its pictures. “Blessed are the pure in heart.” The sequel to the beautiful words repeated by the peasant girl to the thoughtless young man are almost as like that blessing on the mount as if our Saviour had quoted it from the 33d of Isaiah:

“Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty.” The pure in heart live out of the way of morbid curiosity and evil tastes and temptations, because they live above them—so high above that they “see God.”—Congregationalist.