Nelson A. Pryor: Guest Columnist
Thinking, speaking, acting, influential-parents, do you think of this, when you place a book or periodical on your center table? Do you consider its influence for good or evil?
Every book, every paper, has a soul, breathing a spirit, good or bad. It is the soul of its author, and when spread over the pages of the book, that soul acts upon its readers, as truly as when acting directly. The person who touches the book comes in contact with the soul, and is, nolens volens, affected by it. And no contact with it is more influential. In reading an author’s book, you are conversing with him under circumstances very favorable to your becoming like him: for in the book, everything is generally deeply thought out, in shape to convince, or carefully dressed up in a manner to bewitch.- And all this only indicates the necessity of reading with care and caution.
Would you, when purchasing books or papers for your children, have their minds contaminated with vicious principles, let them read everything that pours fourth, like a torrent, from the press of the day? Remember, while extolling the value of the press, that it is powerful for evil as it is great for good.
Remember that the enemy of souls employs it to disseminate his destructive doctrines, and he has even more laborers, probably in his employ, than the Captain of our salvation.
Why should we be so careful in regard to the food with which our bodies are nourished, while we pay so little attention to mental pabulum which our minds receive? Remember, we can as easily plant the seeds of disease in the mind as in the body, and that disease implanted in the mind is eradicated with more difficulty than that of the body.
A book or a paper exerts an influence not only in time but as eternity rolls on! O, how infinitely, momentous important that a wise, judicious selection of reading be made for all, especially for the rising age!
Wisdom
This “anonymous” essay from the ages is actually a reprint (total) from the August 1, 1857 Tallahassee (Fl.) Floridian 1, entitled: “Books and Papers have Souls.” Yes, Parents Matter!
Paying Off Mother
“Mother,” said a little black-eyed boy of six years, “when you get old and want someone to read to you, I will pay you off.”
Little Alexander’s mother had been in the habit of reading to him a great deal, and on this sabbath day, she had read to him a long time out of the Bible and a sabbath school book. The child was just able to read a little himself, and the progress he was making doubtless suggested to him how he might, at some future time, return in kindness all his mother’s care. “I will pay you off, mother,” said he, looking into her face with childish satisfaction, and as if a new thought from heaven had been sent down to light up the little world of his soul. His mother pressed him to her heart with a delight that seemed to say, “My dear son, I am more than paid off already.”
But, children, you can never pay off a mother. Her thoughts of love and acts of affection are more in number than the days of life. From the hour of birth, mother has been one with you. How often has she nourished you, dressed you, kissed you, rocked you on her knee and in the cradle, carried you in her tender arms, watched over you in sleep, guided your infant steps, delighted in the dawning intelligence of your eye, and the winning affection of your smile, hushed your pains and sufferings, sweetly adjudged many appeal cases to her sympathy, corrected at times your misdemeanors, thought of you in absence, and guarded your life with the unvarying remembrances of a mother’s solicitude and the free-will offering of a mother’s devotion? Au, dear, child, you can never “pay off your mother!”
By “anonymous” in the August 1, 1857 Tallahassee (Fl.) Floridian 1.