San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1878-11-30

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$l23, OOO, 000, 900 changes hands through
gambling processes.
"But,' / said, 1T is eleven o'clock.
We must be off, The burly guards
slamming the door after us, we rolled
on towards the gates of hell. My
friends, it is always safe to go where
God calls you to 80, and God has told
me to so through these gates of hell
and explore and report. Taking three
of the high official authorities and two
of the elders of my church, I went in.
I am here this morning to sketch the
gates of hell 1 shall tell you of both
sides, and I shall tell you what those
gates are made of. With the hammer
Of Gods truth shall flash light upon
the shining hinges.
Gate the first. Impure literature.
Anthony Comstock seized twenty tons
of bad books, plates and letter-press.
When Professor Cochran, of the Poly
technic Institute, poured the destruc-
tive acids on those places they smoked
in righteous humiliation. And yet a
great deal of bad literature Of the day
is not gripped Of the law. 1t is strewn
in your parlors. 1t is in your libraries.
Some of your children read it at night
after you have retired. Much Of this
literature is under the title of scientific
information. A book agent with one
of these Internal books, CLOSED with
scientific nomenclature, went into a
hotel and sold in one day one hundred
copies, and sold them all to women. 1t
is appalling that men and women who
can get from the family physician all
the useful information they may need,
and without any condemnation, should
wade in such cursed literature under
the plea of getting useful knowledge.
Then there is all the novelette, literature
of the day. As there are good novels
that are long, so there may be good
novels that are short. But there is an
exception. No one systematically reads
the average novelties Of this day and
keeps either integrity or virtue. The
most of these novelties are written by
broken-down literary men for small
compensation, on the principle that
having failed in literature elevated and
pure, they hope to succeed in the faint
ed and the nasty. Oh. this is wide
gate of hell, and every panel is made
up of bad book or newspaper.
Gate the second. The dissolute dance.
You shall not refer me to the general
subject of dancing, whatever you may
think. am not discussing that ques-
ton. 1t is seen not only in the haunts
of death, but in the elegant mansion.
You know, my friends, what postures
and attitudes and figures are suggestive
of the devil. They who glide into the
dissolute dance glide over an inclined
plane, and the dance is swifter and
swifter, and wilder and wilder, until
with the speed of lightning they whirl
off the edges of the decent life into a
fiery future. This gate of hell is so
wide that it swings across the Axminis-
ter of many fine parlor and across the
ballroom of the summer watering
place. You have no right my brother,
my sister, you have no right to take
attitudes to the sound of music which
would be unbecoming in the absence OF
music. No piano of city parlor, or tid-
die of mountain picnic, can consecrate
that which God hath cursed.
Gate the third. Indiscreet apparel.
The attire of women for the last four or
five centuries has been beautiful and
graceful beyond anything ] have known.
But there are those who will always car
~ that which is right into the extraor-
binary and the indiscreet. 1 am told
that there is fashion about to some in
upon lis from Paris which is shocking
to all righteousness. ] charge Chris
tian women neither by style of dress
nor adjustment of apparel to become
administrative of evil. Perhaps no one
else will dare to tell you so 1 will tell
vou--that there are multitudes of men
who owe their eternal damnation TO the
boldness of womanly attire. Applause.
Chm mo fine fashion nlate of any age