You do not have to walk a day or two in an
infected district to get the cholera or typhoid fever; and one wave
of moral unhealth will fever and blast an immortal nature. Perhaps,
knowing not what you did, you read a bad book. Do you not remember it
altogether? Yes; and perhaps you will never get over it.
However strong and exalted your character, _never read a bad book_. By
the time you get through the first chapter you will see the drift; If
you find the marks of the hoofs of the devil in the pictures, or in
the style, or in the plot, away with it. You may tear your coat, or
break a vase, and repair them again, but the point where the rip or
fracture took place will always be evident. It takes less than an
hour to do your heart a damage which no time can entirely repair. Look
carefully over your child's library; see what book it is that he reads
after he has gone to bed, with the gas turned upon the pillow. Do
not always take it for granted that a book is good because it is
a Sunday-school book.
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