p. 333 | AT THE FOUNTAIN

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Jul 28, 1881

AT THE FOUNTAIN.

THERE is still living a man who will recognize himself as in a glass, if his eyes should fall on these lines. He was a prominent member of an evangelical church, and he was rarely absent from any of its services. He was a good man, studious and intelligent. But with a wife and sons and daughters at home, he always came to church alone; there was not one of them in the Sabbath-school. He never told his pastor where he lived, nor invited him to call. The pastor supposed he was not welcome, but at last he went. The house told its own story. Every table and shelf had a burden on it of trashy literature. There was a fashion journal, police gazette, and large quantities of cheap and flashy novels. There was abundance of all that was worthless, and nothing good. Here was the secret of the whole matter. The bitter fountain sent forth bitter waters. When or how began this corrupting work there was no means of knowing. The results were well defined. No one could expect anything else. The center table was a poisoned fountain, and its streams reached every room in the house. The girls had no companions among the best of their age, and the swearing, Sabbath-breaking boys, began their downward career early. The person in that house who could control its reading, was responsible for the perversion of the family. The good and pure and elevating would have cost no more. It is not enough to remove the evil; the poisonous mental food must give place to good and nourishing reading.—Golden Censer.