You see no harm in it. Look into your own life and what do you discover. The unction of prayer sucked out of your soul, your relish for the Sacraments gone, a dry rot consuming your spiritual life, a nausea for supernatural things, a taste every day becoming more clayey, and an increasing appetite for grosser excitements. Books that you would tremble to touch a year ago you now devour without a pang; or perhaps the stray shreds of infidelity are weaving themselves into your future creed. Do not mind what you see with the eye of a conscience that is already half-dead. Search deep into your own heart and life, and you will quickly discover the damage done. [Side note: Narrow-minded] "_We cannot be narrow-minded_." Is it then a something to be ashamed of, if in matters pertaining to our eternal interests we are cautious and conservative? Not prone to take dangerous risks? This is the disposition sometimes called narrow-mindedness. Surely it is better even to be narrow-minded than pagan-minded. But let us clear our minds of cant and squarely face the question. Will the person who calls you narrow-minded for exercising caution in the selection of your books, exhibit his own breadth of mind by going into a chemist's shop, shutting his eyes and gulping down the contents of the first bottle that comes to his hand? Ha! You see how quickly his broad-mindedness is replaced by most careful caution. But a library is like a chemist's shop. The shelves may hold health-giving medicines or the most deadly poisons. As well call the harbour authorities narrow-minded because they close the ports against the cholera ship, as to question the just prudence of the man who shuts his door against the evil book. [Side note: Up-to-date] "_We must be up-to-date_." The man that takes this as the sole principle by which to guide his moral conduct, not only writes himself down "depraved," but an intellectual imbecile. What does he mean? He means that he is incapable of thinking for himself; that he has no fixed chart, but is tossed about in the eddy of fashion; that he has no principle to guide his own conduct by, but has to look to the street and follow where the crowd leads. The most un-up-to-date people that ever lived were the early Christians. When thousands were swarming to the butcheries of the Coliseum they refused to be up-to-date and kept carefully away from the taint of blood and savagery. When the debaucheries of the festivals disgraced the city, they again refused to be "up-to-date." No doubt they were sneered at and called "old-fashioned," "priest-ridden," &c. But it was they, and not those who taunted them, who showed loftiness and nobility of mind in taking, not the craze of the hour, but the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the standard of their conduct. [Side note: How to meet the Danger]