Another objection to many of the most advertised works of fiction is that they deal with the sacred themes of religion in a very mischievous and misleading manner.

A few popular writers of fiction present evangelical religion in its winning features; they preach with the pen the same truths that they preach from the pulpit.

Two of the perils that threaten American youths are a licentious stage and a poisonous literature.

A highly intelligent lady, who has examined many of the novels printed during the last decade, said to me: "The main purpose of many of these books is to knock away the underpinning of the marriage relation or of the Bible." If parents give house room to trashy or corrupt books, they cannot be surprised if their children give heart-room to "the world, the flesh, and the evil one." When interesting and profitable books are so abundant and so cheap, this increasing rage for novels is to me one of the sinister signs of the times.
Within the last two or three decades there has been a most marked change as to the directions in which the human intellect has exerted its highest activities.

This change is especially marked in the literature of the two great English-speaking nations.