A Solemn Appeal - James White

eflecting, candid person will admit it. How can the
person who is ever feasting his senses with fancy
scenes in the history of sensual lovers, drawn out to
the very life by the masterly hand of some
intellectual sensualist, and all aglow with the high
colorings of their author's amorous imagination;
how can such a person fail to assimilate his own
character more or less with that of his books? As
well may a person take coals in his bosom and not
be burned.
Not long since, a young murderer imputed the
deed which brought him to the gallows to the
reading of a popular novel. But thousands are they,
who, from the time that Alcman wrote the tune of
amorous love, have imputed--and might have
imputed--their fall from virtue to the reading of
voluptuous writings. By these we do not mean
merely or chiefly such writings as, from their open
obscenity, are read only by the grossly corrupt, and
that only in secret. These are comparatively
harmless, in the present state of society. But we
rather mean such writings as make a show of
modesty, are interspersed with excellent
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