THE ASTUTE AUTHOR

When we remember the crude methods of book making in the days of Solomon, compared with the facilities of modern publishing houses, his statement has in it a touch of humour. To-day manuscripts are turned over to printers and binders, and in two weeks an edition of from five to fifty thousand copies are ready for the market. There are three million volumes in our libraries; and, a writer has said, enough new books come from the press annually to build a pyramid as large as St. Paul’s Cathedral, London. Mr. Carnegie is planting his libraries in every town and city in America.

Evening and morning papers are laid at our doors with flaming head-lines of all that has happened the world over in the last twenty-four hours. Detailed descriptions of murders, scandals, elopements, court scenes, betrayals, etc. Magazines, representing every phase of life and industry, are multiplying continually. The literature of a nation is potentially its food for character building, morally and spiritually.

Now what are we reading? Editors are calling for “stuff” with “human interest.” The manuscript with “preaching” gets a return slip instead of a check; writers are governing themselves by this canon. The most popular writers of fiction a decade ago, who wrote books with high moral and spiritual tone, have step by step eliminated religion, and now deal with Socialistic questions and New Thought problems.

The most popular novels are teaching false standards of life, and some of the “best sellers” are base libels on religion and the Church. This is the situation, and a close observation of the output of the high-class, reputable publishers will confirm it. Why is this the status of our book makers? Book writing and publishing, like all other branches of human endeavour, have become commercialized; writers and publishers are pandering to a vitiated taste for revenue only. It is not literature editors are seeking, but stories that will sell.

A librarian of one of our large cities told the writer that seventy-five per cent. of the books called for and read were positively harmful to the highest ideals. If such is true on this plane of literature, what can be said of the publishing houses which produce nothing but books utterly vile and immoral? It is said there are two thousand publishing concerns in New York City issuing just such literature, circulated secretly in many instances. An army of writers are employed to furnish so many “thrillers” monthly. These “stories” deal with the lowest, vilest passions of humanity. What is true of New York is also true of Chicago and other cities.

Enough stories have been written of the James Boys, Wild Bill, Buffalo Bill, and other border heroes (?), could they have lived to take the least part in so many situations, to have required a century to pass through them all. As much blood as was shed actually at Shiloh has been shed by the writers of border outlawry during the past twenty-five years. The indirect influence of the books of the James Boys have caused more bloodshed than those Missouri bandits spilt by their unerring marksmanship.

A penniless orphan boy was adopted by his well-to-do uncle, who gave him all the comforts and opportunities of an actual son. Early in his teens he became a novel fiend—the lowest and vilest type; reading several each week. When scarcely fifteen years old, he armed himself with his uncle’s pistol, took from the barn the finest horse, and left in the early morning. The gentleman, suspecting the truth concerning the missing horse and boy, called a neighbour, and the two gave chase to the young ingrate. They came upon him late in the day, and as the uncle seized the bridle rein, the nephew shot him through the heart, and wounded the neighbour before he could be pulled from the horse and overpowered.

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.

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