December has not left us yet, little readers. You see COLD winter is here, and all nature looks drear, The leaves on the trees are all yellow and sere, The tempest now darkens the face of the skies, And the sharp, whistling storm-winds with terror arise. How cheerless and sad is the home of the poor, When the northern wind blows, how hard to endure In the home of the needy, where poverty dwells, And the breast fill'd with anguish, painfully swells! PUTTING RAZORS TO CHILDREN'S THROATS. A BLESSED gospel minister, whose eyes are open to see what Satan is doing, through his active agents-ministers and religious editors-said a short time since, "that parents might just as well take a razor and cut their children's throats, as to allow them to read the corrupting literature of the day." Is this declaration, startling as it is, too strong or too bold? Not in the least. If parents have made up their minds fully to kill their sons and daughters any how (as many seem to have), why not dispatch business-make quick work of it! This killing by inches or piecemeal, is the most painful and cruel of all deaths! This same Christian minister goes on to say: "Thousands of the youth of our land are annually swept down to hell by poisonous literature. And yet books and papers of that character are to be found upon the tables of professed Christians. Some think them harmless, and permit them to ruin their own children. Fathers and mothers, look after your children, and see what they are reading. Banish all pernicious books and papers from your houses, and furnish your children with an abundance of such as are calculated to make them wise and good. They may plead for novels, and try to convince you that they are as harmless as they are charming. Beware of that thought! Hearken to the testimony of those who have watched the influence of novel-reading. PUTTING RAZORS TO CHILDREN'S THROATS. 239 "Goldsmith, himself a novel-writer, says: 'Above all, never let your son touch a novel or romance. How delusive, how destructive, are these features of consummate bliss! They teach the youthful mind to sigh after beauty and happiness that never existed, to despise the little good that Fortune has mixed in our cup, by expecting more than she ever gave.' the "Rev. John Foster, an eminent Baptist minister in England, says: 'Novels are doing incalculable mischief. I wish we could collect them all together, and make one vast fire of them. I should exult to see the smoke of them ascend like that of Sodom and Gomorrah: the judgment would be as just.' The fearful results of novel-reading are a standing warning against the practice. Let the pulpit and press speak out boldly, and arouse the unsuspecting." Let your mind pierce through the vista of the next twenty years the children now will be men and women then-the long procession of drunkards, criminals, and prostitutes that now degrade our world, will have passed away to "that borne from whence no traveler returns ;"-but with the same influences at work, there will be few, if any, gaps made;—our workhouse will be crowded as they are nowour gaols will be crowded as they are now-drivelling sots and raving maniacs will abound on every hand as they do now--a long train of lecherous harlots will infest our streets even as they do now. And where will they come from?-where, but from our children? Fathers!-mothers! your children are in danger;-run to their rescue! The most potent agency in effecting their ruin will be through the medium of a corrupt press in the hands of whom? 303 West Twentieth Street, New York. KILLED WITH A HATCHET: OR FEASTING ON LIES. "LOUISVILLE, December 28, 1871.-The inquest on the body of Mrs. Klanzar, killed with a hatchet by her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Weissert, last Saturday, revealed the probability that the murderess is deranged on the subject of crime, from reading cheap novels and the flashy literature of the day. Many such books and papers were found in her room, and proved that she had been in the habit of poring over them incessantly." THE case of Mrs. Weissert is a common one, though it rarely happens that the brutality and ferocity of a criminal can be so easily traced to their real cause. Could the public know how many of the suicides, murders, rapes and assaults of all kinds are due directly to the brutal and lascivious pictures and anecdotes of sensational newspapers upon diseased and morbid imaginations, there would be a reaction that would speedily drive those infamous weeklies from the market. But comparatively few people, it would seem, ever think of giving those newspapers their proper place among the causes of crime. Murders, seductions, and the other tragedies of every-day life, go on increasing from year to year; the vile print-makers and publishers work harder and harder, and grow richer and richer, while the law that would arrest and imprison the beggar-boy for stealing a bone, shuts its eyes secretly to the stream of vileness that goes out on every express train from New York to poison and brutalize the minds of the young and weak, and to place before the already debauched young men of every town and village an incentive to crime, surpassing in influence even the dram-shop or the brothel. KILLED WITH A HATCHET. 241 This woman in Louisville who was incited by sensational reading to commit murder, stands to-day as the type of a disease, for the existence of which society is responsible. Where do these sparks of hell-fire begin? Who kindled them? This woman, doubtless, commenced her downward career on white lies, or religious novels penned and puffed by backslidden, money-loving church members, trying to serve two masters-Christ and Belial! Then, when her taste was formed for the light and visionary, where now?-under the complete control of the devil!* After feasting on white lies, she was prepared to take her fill on black lies, till given over to the vilest sins, to work all manner of iniquity with greediness! Finally, imbue her hands in blood! Satan is at the bottom of this craziness. No one in his right mind will presume to write, read, sell, advertise, or puff these missiles of the pit. It is the worst kind of derangement or lunacy. "The prince of the power of the air, the spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience," has many agents in his employ.† A book or paper lives not only while its author lives, but long after the hand which wrote it has turned to dust, and if it is a bad book or periodical, it is one of the most malignant forces on the earth. Dr. Ray, of the Butler Insane Asylum, of Providence, R. I., attributes the increase of insanity to "excessive indulgence in the reading of novels, which have, of late years, swarmed from the presses of New York, Philadelphia and Boston. † Let a committee be appointed to wait on ministerial writers and puffers of white lies, to cease their satanic agency and this work of desolation, and ruin ceases to existand not till then. |