Testimony in Print

It was a new day for our world when it became possible for the great truths of the universe and the lofty thoughts of men to be spread in print across the face of the earth, so that the thoughts of all who choose to write could be known by all who choose to read. Thus the Bible, and the great works of science, philosophy, and literature, found their way into the hands of the many instead of into the hands of only the few⎯and printing, the art of preserving for the present and for the future the thoughts of the present and of the past, became the common medium of exchange among all enlightened peoples. But, as would be expected, along with the printing and circulation of good ideas, there has also been the printing and circulation of bad ideas. Some of the things we see in print cause us to give thanks for the glory of God and the intelligences of man, and some of the things we see in print make us ashamed of our own kind. Filth has been circulated in the name of realism. Vicious suggestion has been circulated in the name of liberalism. Too many have found it profitable to sell that which has excited the imagination and poisoned the minds of our youth⎯to popularize a type of literature which is called “frank,” and “realistic,” but which is really immoral backwash. Deplorable amounts of ink and paper have been used for those purposes which offend decent minds and which poison the thinking of the highly impressionable. Of course, there is freedom to be considered, freedom in literature as well as in all other things; but freedom will not long remain where decency has departed, and certainly much of the trash that is purveyed, much of the printed filth by which our youth are victimized, is recognized and condemned by all thoughtful men as a prostitution of literary freedom. As we judge the past largely by the tangible record it ha left, so may future generations judge us, of our day, by the testimony we leave in print⎯and may the Lord God help us to surmount the shame we must certainly feel when some of our print comes to the light of future times, for, as spoken by the prophet⎯”our words will condemn us . . . and our thoughts will also condemn us . . .” We shall see a better world and a safer generation when our youth, and all of us, are freed from the influence of filth in print⎯when we have undergone a literary house cleaning wherever it is needed.