Peculiarly Dangerous Times.
IN a recent number of the Sunday School Times, H. S. Osborn, LL.D., remarks: "We are living in peculiarly dangerous times, from the reading which is now brought out. At no former time in the history of our country has light reading been so much in demand as at the present day. All classes of persons, learned and ignorant, professional men, business men, educated ladies, as well as the nurse and help, the cook and chambermaid, demand light reading—tales, stories, novels, or something 'exciting.' I have heard it asserted that more works of this character have been sold in the past two years than had been sold in the preceding sixty years!" He then refers to Dr. Ray, of the Butler Insane Asylum, of Providence, R. I., as attributing the increase of insanity to "excessive indulgence in the reading of novels, and works of a similar character, which have of late years swarmed from the press of New York, Philadelphia, and Boston," and makes this quotation from the official reports:— "The coarse exaggeration of every sentiment by every possible form of unnatural excitement, giving no addition to one's stock of knowledge, no element of mental strength evolved, prepares no one better for the stern realities of life. This indulgence is a characteristic of our times, and it is asserted, with distressing evidence, that many of the irregularities which prevail among us, to a degree unknown at any former period, are chargeable to this very alarmingly prevalent habit." We do not believe this alarm of danger uncalled for. Our land is being flooded with this pernicious "light literature." It is the principal kind offered for sale at the news-stands, the railway cars, and the places of public resort. It behooves every Christian parent to look well to the character of his own reading, and that which he allows his children to have.—Sel.