Sensational Literature

Many of the popular publications of the day are filled with sensational stories that are educating the youth in wickedness and leading them in the path to perdition. Mere children in years are old in a knowledge of crime. They are incited to evil by the tales they read. In imagination they act out the deeds portrayed, until their ambition is aroused to see what they can do in committing crime and evading punishment. To the active minds of children and youth the scenes pictured in imaginary revelations of the future are realities. As revolutions are predicted and all manner of proceedings described that break down the barriers of law and self-restraint, many catch the spirit of these representations. They are led to commit crimes even worse, if possible, than these sensational writers depict. Through influences such as these, society is becoming demoralized. The seeds of lawlessness are sown everywhere, and a harvest of crime is the result.MHH 257.4

Works of romance, frivolous, exciting tales, are, in hardly less degree, a curse to the reader. Authors may profess to teach a moral lesson, they may interweave religious sentiments throughout their work, but often these serve only to veil the folly and worthlessness beneath.MHH 257.5

The world is flooded with books that are filled with enticing error. The youth receive as truth that which the Bible denounces as falsehood, and they love and cling to deception that means ruin to the soul.MHH 258.1

There are works of fiction that were written for the purpose of teaching truth or exposing some great evil. Some of these works have accomplished good. Yet they have also wrought untold harm. They contain statements and highly wrought pen pictures that excite the imagination and give rise to a train of thought that is full of danger, especially to the youth. The scenes described are lived over and over again in their thoughts. Such reading unfits the mind for usefulness and disqualifies it for spiritual exercise. It destroys interest in the Bible. Heavenly things find little place in the thoughts. As the mind dwells upon the scenes of impurity portrayed, passion is aroused, and the end is sin.MHH 258.2

Even fiction that contains no suggestion of impurity, and which may be intended to teach excellent principles, is harmful. It encourages the habit of hasty and superficial reading merely for the story. Thus it tends to destroy the power of connected and vigorous thought. It unfits the soul to contemplate the great problems of duty and destiny.MHH 258.3

By fostering love for mere amusement, the reading of fiction creates a distaste for life’s practical duties. Through its exciting, intoxicating power it is not infrequently a cause of both mental and physical disease. Many a miserable, neglected home, many a lifelong invalid, many an inmate of the insane asylum, has become such through the habit of novel reading.MHH 258.4

It is often urged that in order to win the youth from sensational or worthless literature we should supply them with a better class of fiction. This is like trying to cure an alcoholic by giving him the milder intoxicants, such as wine, beer, or cider, in the place of whisky or brandy. The use of these would continually foster the appetite for stronger stimulants. The only safety for an alcoholic, and the only safeguard for the temperate person, is total abstinence. For the lover of fiction the same rule holds true. Total abstinence is one’s only safety.MHH 258.5