October, 1934
341
T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
Consider the Evil Book For evil books we need a bonfire as consuming as the one in the streets of Ephesus: “Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver” (Acts 19:19). An evil book! Who can describe the contamination that comes from such a stream of pollution? Who can cause to ripen into righteousness the immature fruit bruised and beaten by such a printed hailstorm? Who can show the tragedy of the blight of such a verbal volcano spewing corrupt lava through green gardens of life? Or who can know fully the overtopping and underlying curse of a profligate hook ? A bad book lives on, whenever a copy of that book is
Was ever book containing such vile matter So fairly bound? O, that deceit should dwell In such a gorgeous palace.
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There is much vile matter “so fairly bound.” A bad book that is ornately embellished, artistically printed, some times attractively illustrated, is a palace of mental poison. But poison ivy is also pretty. A snake is beautiful. And acid looks harmless. Reading an evil book is like jumping through a hedge of thorns to get one blackberry—like swimming through fifty yards of sewerage to get one teaspoon of truth—like jumping into a volcano to see whether fire burns. Burned be the book that trys to make crime attractive, hypocrisy noble,- and impurity decent ! Cursed be the infidel book that summons the Scripture to appear at the bar of human reason, that persuades men to give up the gospel and spirit
read, long after — some times even centuries after -—the author is in a coffin. The influence of a bad book spreads and persists. The vicious influence runs on in successive harvests of evil. A crushed rattle snake bites no more. A lion with a bullet through its brain devours no more. A spent bullet wounds no more. But a bad book continues to wound and de stroy. It continues to agi tate the current of the world’s thought and life, planting the seeds of disso lution and misery, chilling religion, low e rin g the moral tone. We cannot reckon as dead the authors who sur vive in base books. A bad book walks earth’s high ways and bypaths as a curse. Its image is painted in fast colors; its biogra phy is written in indelible ink, its dirty hands be smirched and besmirching with immoral filth. There is no worse bur
ual religion as a myth, that blatantly declares God is a nonentity, that persuades peop le to give up the church of Christ as a use less burden on humanity’s back, that asks youth to give up good morals as an infringement on personal rights and expression! Bad, woefully bad, it is to think bad thoughts. Evil indeed it is to utter bad thoughts in spoken word. But it is a crime to commit them to paper by way of the printing press. I doubt whether any faculty is so abused by man as that of speech. And certainly the effect of no other discovery or invention is so terrible when put to sinful use as the printing press. It is an awful perversion of power when this most monumen tal of all man’s discoveries for his good is given to the publication of a book whose contents are such as to pervert the mind to evil thinking.
Photograph by Adelbert Bartlett
9 Students of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles enjoy the facilities of a library which is constantly being enlarged and improved. Over 6,000 volumes are now available for use, including a complete copy of the Braille Bible, an unusually strong reference and commentary section, and a valuable missionary department. Five original Babylonian tablets, dated 2350 B.C., were presented to the Institute by the late Melvin Grove Kyle, and are now on exhibition in the library. At about the time of the opening of the fall semester, four large cases of missionary curios, representing almost every mission field of the world, will be in readiness for the use of not only the students and faculty of the Insti tute, but also visiting groups of Sunday-school workers and other friends.
glar or robber than a bad book. A bad book cannot repent. If the devil cannot keep men in ignorance, he will do all he can to poison man’s books. A bad book, like an intoxicating drink, furnishes neither nourishment nor medicine. A man who writes an evil book may be followed into eternity by a procession of lost souls, each soul to be a witness against him at the judgment, to show him and the universe the immeasurableness of his iniquity. You can kill a bandit or imprison a criminal and stop their evil conduct, but you cannot kill the evil started and maintained by an evil book. The influence of a criminal is for but a few short years, while that of an evil book that corrupts the imagination and influences the passions may be for ages. What a scourge is an unclean book! It helps fill insane asylums, penitentiaries, dens of shame. While plagues count their bodily victims by the thousands, a bad book has power to put tens of thousands in the morgue of the morally dead—power to bring putrefactions in the land. A bad book is the most subtle and insidious agent under the dominion of the prince of darkness. Juliet said to Romeo—when she discovered he had slain Tybalt:
There Is the Book of Books— the Bible One gem from the Book of books is worth all the jewels from all earthly mines. This blessed Book have countless hosts found to be “the ladder to heaven’s open skies—stair ways that lead them to God.” The Bible, settled in its source (Psa. 119:89), is a Book above and beyond all books as a river is beyond a rill in reach. The Bible, so sure in its promises (Jer. 1 :12), is above and beyond all books as the sun is beyond a tallow dip in brightness. The Bible, so satisfying in its contents (Jer. 15:16), is above and beyond all books as the wings of an eagle are beyond the wings of a sparrow in strength. The Bible, so secure in its guidance (Psa. 119:105), is above and beyond all books as an orchard is beyond a road side weed in fruit-bearing. The Bible, supreme in God’s estimation (Psa. 138:2), is above and beyond all books as Niagara is beyond a mud puddle in glory. The Bible, coming to us drenched in the tears of multi tudinous contritions, is the Book our fathers touched with reverent hands. The Bible, coming to us worn with the fingers of agony and death, is the Book our mothers stained [Continued on page 347].
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