W. S. (William Shuler) Harris
healthful and exhilarating effect that comes from total mental
absorption. All this will tend to the development of your nature so
that you will, by contrast, better appreciate the substantial things
of life."
I saw that Mr. World and Miss Church-Member next visited the hall
devoted to the "Literature of the Passions." After they had entered,
Miss Church-Member, at first, felt embarrassed, and her sense of modesty
would not have allowed her to remain had it not been that her conscience
was eased by these conditions:
1. She saw that among the moving thousands that were present in the
massive hall many belonged to the higher classes of society.
2. She was also informed that not a few of the throng held good
membership in various branches of the visible church.
3. She readily observed that Mr. World was so much delighted that she
offered no protest, and that he seemed to take an interest in the
endless program as carried out in one department or another.
In this poisonous hall Miss Church-Member stultified herself more than
in any other place which she had ever before visited, and thereby added
one more decisive step in her downward course. She tarried longest in
one of the sub-departments where Satan's expert doctors of literature
delivered their special lectures on the writings of each author as far
as they related directly or indirectly to the passions.
These avowed experts carried on their fiendish work under the cover
of a pleasing dignity. After their crafty manner they quoted or read
the fine sentences of an author, preferably those of a sensual cast,
and then placed a premium on the passionate by describing the fine
style of the author and showing how true to nature was the language
he employed.
Thus I saw that the leaders of this department were using the choicest
and the foulest productions of the pen, gathered from the authors of
all lands, languages and ages, and Miss Church-Member, by degrees
almost imperceptible, voluntarily sacrificed her finer moral taste on
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