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The Reading Habit

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Pacific Press Publishing Association

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 33, No. 50.

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The Reading Habit

By Maude Macomber

By Maude Macomber
“Knowledge is power,” and in no other way can we gather greater stores of knowledge than by reading.
By this means we travel thru countries we have never seen, and become acquainted with strange peoples we have never met. The wonderful inventions of this the time of the end have made it possible for us to read the news of the world in a few hours after events have occurred.
Not so many years ago there were no daily newspapers, and books were found only in the homes of the wealthy but to-day they are within the reach of all.
What a debt of gratitude we owe to those noble men who, at the risk of their own lives, sometimes, translated the Bible into the language of the common people, thus lifting the dark curtain of ignorance and superstition and letting in the light of God's eternal truth. From the days of the early reformers, God's servants have been at work giving to the people many valuable books explaining the Scriptures and seeking to lead men to investigate for themselves its rich mines of truth.
In the meantime Satan has not been idle, but has set his agents at work to pour into the world a flood of literature that would corrupt men's minds and turn them away from God. Thus that which God designed should be only a blessing has, to many, become a curse.
The world is full of books, and the question, What shall I read? is one that confronts every young person. The proper solving of this question has much to do in determining our character, for the books we read as well as the people with whom we associate have a tremendous influence upon us.
Let us listen for a few moments to the testimony of some of the world's great men concerning the value and importance of good reading:
Napoleon: “Show me the man that reads good books and I will show you the man who moves the world.”
Clay: “When I was a boy, I was very poor and my mother was very poor, but she was never too poor to buy her boy a good book, and to this more than to anything else I owe my success in life.”
Franklin: “A dollar in the head is worth five in the pocket and you might say fifty on the back; because that in the pocket will get out, that on the back will wear off, but that in the head grows sharper with constant use.”
It is a noticeable fact in reading the lives of missionaries that many of them received their first inspiration from reading of others who had devoted their lives to God's service. Another thing to be noticed is that this inspiration came to most of them in their youth. This should not be lost sight of in the education of our children.
We read of David Livingstone, the noted explorer and missionary who did so much for the Dark Continent of Africa, that he formed the ambition to be a missionary after reading an appeal to the churches of Britain and America on behalf of China.
The need of the heathen world was impressed deeply on the heart and mind of William Carey by reading “Cook's Voyages Around the World.” Henry Martyn had designed to fit himself for the law, but the influence of William Carey in India and David Brainerd, the Indian missionary of America, led him to devote his life to the work of Christian missions.
It is the hope of our people to see the world evangelized in this generation. Think what a host of young people are needed out on the “firing line” to herald this message to the world. Only the young and strong are fitted to endure the hardships and overcome the obstacles that present themselves in the foreign field.
We have within our ranks an army of about 50,000 young people. Let us educate and inspire their hearts and minds to enter the open doors and answer the calls that are continually coming. It has been said that the amount of energy necessary to secure the active cooperation of one adult Christian will kindle the enthusiasm of twenty young people.
Every year there is a stream of young people passing from the church and Sabbath-school out into the world, not to enter the work of the Lord, but to follow some worldly ambition. This is a sad condition of affairs, but it has its causes, and it is for us to find them out and remedy them. It should enlist the attention of every father, mother, and teacher; for what is so precious as our children? They are not leaving us for lack of interest, but because we have failed to enlist their interest in the right direction.
O, if we could only understand our great responsibility! If we worked half as hard to train the minds of our children as we do to provide for their physical necessities, what a change there would be. How many mothers drive their children out of doors to amuse themselves or play with questionable companions that they may have time to fashion dainty garments or cook indigestible dishes!
These same mothers, weary with their many cares, have no time for the bed-time stories, or for the heart-to-heart talks that every child needs. What our child puts into his mind ought certainly to give us as much concern as what he puts into his stomach.
Both are important, for the perfect child must have a sound mind in a sound body.
Every mother should have time to select for her child those things that he should read, and to read with him and to him.
In how many Christian homes are there children greedily devouring the jokes in the comic papers and the “funny” pictures that are cheap and belittling in their effect upon the mind. By them the most sacred relations in life are brought down to a vulgar plane. The good are ridiculed and wrong conduct considered as a good joke. Many are fascinated with love stories and novels, which, tho they may be considered high class, destroy the taste for solid reading. The mind benumbed by these things demands constant stimulation and can not be brought to enjoy the word of God.
The appetite of such victims for reading must be changed, but we must not work from the negative side. It is not enough to say, Do not read this, and Do not read that. We must provide them something they can read. Their appetite for the wholesome and good needs stimulating, and we must tempt them with dainty morsels just as we tempt the invalid to eat. We should not wait until the reading habit has been formed, but begin as soon as they show any inclination to read. God pity those of us who have neglected our opportunities and must now reap the bitter fruits of our own sowing. Perhaps it is not yet too late if we put forth earnest effort. Surely no sacrifice will be counted too great to save our boys and girls.
Those who have made careful investigations estimate that the normal child begins to read intelligently and with pleasure at the age of eight and one-half years. From this age on they are omnivorous readers. If nothing else presents itself they will read the almanac.
This is a God-given instinct, and if we only take wise advantage of it we may train their minds to read the best of all books before their minds have received impressions that will cause them to have a distaste for the Bible.
Childhood and youth are the habit-forming period, and how careful we should be of the character building of our children. We need to give them every advantage that they may have real, true ideas of virtue and morality. We want to forestall the bad by filling the mind with the good.
If the child receives from its parents and from the books it reads definite ideas of right and wrong, and of its own relations to life, it will give little heed to the stories it may hear from impure associates. “I guess my mother knows,” is the child's unanswerable argument. It is the child who is ignorant, or at best has vague ideas, that is most susceptible to evil.
Between the ages of eight and fourteen, the child enjoys reading about people who have done real things,and now is the time to present to them biographies of missionary heroes and heroines who have done valiant service for the Lord. The children are now studying history and geography in school, so this is also the opportune time to make them acquainted with Bible history.
With what interest will they follow the wanderings of the children of Israel and their conquests under their noble leader Joshua.
As they study geography let them think of the vast countries beyond with their strange foreign people as so many open doors which they must hasten to enter with the Gospel message.
We read of Robert Moffat, a Scotch missionary to South Africa, that his mother saturated him while young with a knowledge of the Bible and stories of the early Moravian brethren. The result was that at the age of nineteen he offered himself to the London Missionary Society and was accepted.
Our children should become familiar with the struggles of the early pioneers in this third angel's message. It will touch their hearts and cause them to value the precious truths which have been given to us.
The boy always has an ideal, a definite standard of life before him. He is naturally a hero-worshiper, and whether that hero is a cowboy, pirate, desperado, soldier, missionary, or the Missionary, depends very largely on the books he reads. A sad picture of Christian homes there is where may be found concealed from parents stories of detectives, highway robbers, and fiction. These the boys read in secret while the parents are blissfully unconscious of the fact and later find themselves helpless to avert the consequences of it. The boy thinks he can do anything anybody else has done, and we have all read of youthful criminals who had been fired with an ambition to wreck trains and commit other depredations just by reading stories of that character.
In like manner our boys who read of noble men and women whom God has used to do a great work for Him, will be filled with an earnest desire to go and do likewise.
As the boy reaches the critical period of life—from thirteen to twenty—a mind well stored with noble examples will be of the greatest value to him. A great change comes into his life. All the powers of mind and body are waking up. He is buffeted with strange and conflicting emotions. A spirit of unrest takes possession of him, his mind is filled with doubt and uncertainty. He questions the faith of his childhood, and unless he has had careful religious training he is liable to make shipwreck and be lost for time and eternity. What an encouragement in his hour of temptation will be the thought of Joseph in Egypt, and Daniel at the court of Nebuchadnezzar. They were young men tempted like himself, but they fought and won.
Many of our youth are hampered in their efforts to obtain an education, and a knowledge of others who have struggled with poverty and yet reached the top of the ladder will help them to persevere and fit themselves for a life of usefulness.
“The heights by great men reached and kept, Were not attained by sudden flight; But they while their companions slept Were toiling upward in the night.”
In nothing has the Christian church shown her folly so much as in neglecting the youth. Our hearts ache when we think of the many who have gone never to return, but let us lose no time in getting to work for those who remain.
We want our young people to have broad, well-balanced minds, and for this reason we must use all our influence to turn them away from the reading of books that pervert taste and destroy the soul.
There has been organized for our young people a reading course the outline of which is found in the Youth's Instructor from week to week. We would recommend all our young people to take up this study.
We must never allow our enthusiasm to grow cold, but remember—
“There is a tide in the affairs of men Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat, And we must take the current when it serves, Or lose our ventures.”