PERNICIOUS READING

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 2, 1880

PERNICIOUS READING.

The bad influence of pernicious books, especially upon the young, is set forth in these anecdotes:—

The boy David Hume was a believer in the Scriptures until he ransacked the works of infidels to prepare for a debate in which he was to take part.

It is said of Voltaire that when only five years of age, he committed to memory an infidel poem, and was never able after that to undo its pernicious influences upon his mind.

Thomas Chambers, an officer of the British government, says that all the boys brought before the criminal courts can ascribe their downfall to impure reading.

Wilberforce, speaking of the words of Lindsey upon his own mind, thus wrote:—

"It was a foolish curiosity, and I was obliged to stop when I had proceeded a little way in the second volume; for, though I was sensible of the sophistry and effrontery of many of his arguments and objections, yet, somehow, my mind was entangled and hurt, and after I had put the book away, it was two or three days before I was composed again."

Robert Hall tells us, in one of his sermons, that after the reading of a certain work, "he could scarcely go through the usual devotional exercises of the sanctuary."