恩典宝石 · 文章
日益高涨的小说阅读狂热！
The increasing rage for novel reading!
中文译文
小说常能让良善之人因操劳过度而疲惫的头脑得到有益的舒缓。近来许多流行小说的格调是健康的，历史小说也往往富有教益。
专读小说对人心思的影响，恰如调味浓烈的食物和刺激身体的酒精饮品对身体的影响。即使是最好的小说，最主要的问题也在于，它们会使人心里厌弃一切严肃的读物。
日益高涨的小说阅读狂热，既显出智识上的饥荒，也预示着心智生活和属灵生命所面临的严重危险。
实话实说，如今的虚构作品中，有太多是隐蔽的毒药。一些最流行的小说，其情节以不道德的行为和某种违背第七条诫命的行为为基础。
它们点燃邪恶的情欲；
它们给罪恶涂脂抹粉，披上华美的外衣；
它们嘲笑婚姻的纯洁；
它们揭露本应隐藏的事；
它们用诱人的色彩描绘那些纯洁的眼睛绝不该看、端庄的口舌绝不该提的事。
威胁美国青少年的危险，其中两样就是淫逸的戏剧和有毒的文学。一位查阅过许多过去十年间出版的小说的人对我说：“这些书中，有许多的主要目的，就是要拆毁圣经所教导的婚姻关系的根基。”
父母若在家中给低劣或败坏的书籍留地步，那么，儿女若在心里给“世界、肉体和魔鬼”留地步，他们也就不该感到奇怪了。既然有趣又有益的书籍如此丰富、如此便宜，这股日益高涨的小说阅读狂热，在我看来，就是这个时代的不祥征兆之一！
“你要逃避少年的私欲，……追求公义”！
提摩太后书2:22（节录）
［编者按：今天，那些不道德而又乏味的媒体，使绝大多数自称基督徒的人心思和心灵麻痹，受到污染和毒害。真不知凯勒面对这一切，会说些什么！］
ENGLISH ORIGINAL
The increasing rage for novel reading! ( Theodore Cuyler ) Fiction has often been a wholesome relief to a good man's overworked and weary brain. Many of the recent popular novels are wholesome in their tone, and the historical type often instructive . Exclusive reading of novels is to a person's mind — just what highly spiced food and alcoholic stimulants are to the body. The chief objection to the best of them, is that they excite a distaste in the mind for any serious reading. The increasing rage for novel reading betokens both a famine in the intellect, and a serious peril to the mental and spiritual life. The honest truth is — that too large a number of today's fictitious works are subtle poison. The plots of some of the most popular novels are based on immorality, and the violation in some form of the seventh commandment. They kindle evil passions; they varnish and veneer vice; they deride marital purity; they uncover what ought to be hidden; they paint in attractive hues — what never ought to be seen by any pure eye, or named by any modest tongue. Two of the perils which threaten American youths, are a licentious theater and a poisonous literature . One 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 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 devil." 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! "Now flee from youthful lusts and pursue righteousness!" 2 Timothy 2:22
[ Editor's note: One can only wonder what Culyer would say about the immoral and insipid media which paralyze, pollute and poison the minds and hearts of the vast majority of professing Christians today!]