CHAPTER 1 - ( CHRISTIAN LEADERS IN THE 18TH CENTURY ) - { PT. 13 }


 CHAPTER  1  -  ( CHRISTIAN LEADERS IN THE 18TH CENTURY )  -  { PT.  13 } - What was the popular literature a hundred years ago? I pass over the fact that Boling-broke, Gibbon, and Hume the historian were all deeply dyed with skepticism. I speak of the light reading that was then popular. Turn to the pages of Fielding, Smollett, Swift, and Sterne and you have the answer. The cleverness of these writers is undeniable, but the indecency of many of their writings is so glaring and blatant that few people today would want to allow their works to be seen in their coffee tables. My picture, I fear, is a very dark and gloomy one. I wish it were in my power to throw a little more light into it, but facts are stubborn things, especially facts about literature of a hundred years ago is to be found in the moral writings of Joseph Addison, Samuel Johnson, and Richard Steele, but the effects of such literature on the general public, it may be feared, was incredibly small. In fact, I believe that Johnson and the essayists had no more influence on the religion and morality of the people than the broom of the renowned Mrs. Partington had on the waves of the Atlantic Ocean.                                                                    ________________________________________________________ 

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