Page:The Relation of the Sunday-school System to our Christian Patriotism.pdf/20

20 and will be, if pains be not taken to render it a blessing. The press, though one of God’s greatest gifts to man, like every other bounty of his, may be converted into a fruitful means of mischief. It would be, truly, most short-sighted folly, to lament the cheapness of publication in our day. Knowledge should be free as the air and light of heaven. If evil outwork the good, it is the fault of those who profess themselves to be the friends of good, for they have the same facilities. Yet who can see, without alarm, the prostitution of many partisan newspapers, or the multitude of sheets and pamphlet books flying through the land, or hawked about our streets, at prices almost nominal, filled with the most pungent provocatives to licentiousness, outrage and blasphemy, finding their account in pandering to the pruriency of lust, rancorous passions, and the enmity of the heart against God? To teach a child reading, and not to follow up the service by providing him with good books, and giving him counsel how to read them, is but to prepare him for the most dangerous forms of temptation in which bad men have colluded with hell to ruin immortal souls. For this necessity our has provided. The teacher is the child’s affectionate friend, and with him is sent a rich of hallowed volumes, carefully fitted to inculcate the best lessons, while they lead on the youthful reader by their pleasing style.

We may go further, and say, that no mental culture can be otherwise than hurtful, except as it is accompanied by moral instruction. If the heart be not inspired, strengthened, and guarded by right principles, both mind and heart will be mere abject slaves of that lower