A beautiful girl was found dead in Central Park, New York. Her face, form, and the fabric of her clothing showed plainly that she belonged to a home of wealth and culture. In one hand was an empty vial labelled deadly poison; in the other hand, gripped in the paroxysms of her last struggle, was a paperback novel. The explanation was simple: the heroine had a downfall, and rather than face her shame, committed suicide.
If you will observe the throng of factory girls, overworked, underpaid, heart-hungry from which the White Slaver reaps a rich harvest, they will be reading the class of book mentioned. They enter into the sacred relation of married life with false, distorted ideals, the end of which is often ruin: infidelity to marriage vows, abandonment, and divorce court.
There is another department of literature, written with but one purpose in view: the overthrow of orthodox faith. A thousand questions are raised which the common people cannot answer. Why is it the unchurched masses are continually drifting farther and farther from the Church and what it stands for? Labour unions have almost repudiated religion; class hatred was never more pronounced than to-day, notwithstanding the loud proclamation of human brotherhood. Say what you will as to causes, this condition is not an accident; we must go far up the turbid stream to find the source of these defiling waters. When we find the source, it will be found that behind all these insidious influences stands the inspiring Author.
Why is there such an incessant effort to divert the minds of the best people from personal relationship of Jesus through faith in His blood? Where is the author, the editor—even religious editors—who stand four-square for the Bible of our fathers and mothers? We are glad to say there are a few exceptions; but the drift of writers and editors is away from fundamentals. Satan boldly and thievishly appropriates every available avenue to the soul; wherever his cold, clammy hand touches, it leaves a chill of death. Beyond a question more writers than we ever dreamed are only amanuenses of the Astute Author.
XXVI
THE HYPNOTIST
“Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders.”—2 Thessalonians ii. 9.
“And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast.”—Revelation xiii. 14.