The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1881-12-01

TENT: Exodus, viii, 6: And the frogs
came up and covered the land of Egypt,
and the magicians did so with their en-
chantments, and brought up frogs over
the land of Egypt"
There is now universal aversion To
frogs, hut with the Egyptian they We're
hOnOred and sacred while living, and
after death were embalmed, and re-
mains of them can to-day be found
among the sepulchers of Ihebes. These
creatures, so protected of the ancientS
once, became at Divine behest obnoxious
d lOathsOme, and went crOahng.
leaping, hopping into the palace of the
King, and the bread trays and cOuches
of ali the people. And even the ovens,
which instead of as now being built at
the side of a chimney quite high above
the earth, were a mere hole i'll the
ground with an earthen pot sunken,
were filled with frogs. If the people
attempted to eat off plate, frog
alighted on the food; or put on shoe II
was preOccupied by a frog; or attempted
to put a head on pillow, frog had
taken possession. Frogs high and low
and everywhere. LOathSOme frogs, Shiny
frogs, besieging frogs, innumerable
frogs. great plague of frogs. But that
was not enough. The magicianS pro-
posed to show that there was nothing
miraculous about it, and that they could
produce the like creatures by Slight-Of-
hand. and they succeeded on a small
scale, for you know straightforward can
do wonders. As Moses had thrown down
staff and it became serpent, and
when he took hold of it and it again be-
came a staff, 50 the Serpent-charmerS,
knowing that there was serpent in
Egypt which, by being peculiarly pressed
on the neck becomes rigid as piece of
wood. seemed to change a serpent into
a staff and a staff into Il serpent. These
magicians likewise initiated the plague
of frogs. perhaps, by the smell of food
cOaXing a great many into certain
place, or perhaps shaking them from
some secluded place as magician Will.
But while they might make the plague
worse, they could not make 1t better.
My text says, 1.-The frogs came up and
covered the land of Egypt, and the magi-
clans did 50 with their entertainments,
and brought up frogs over the land of
Egypt"
/ have to tell you that the plague of
frogs has come back, and is at this hour
affecting this nation. They come in the
shape of corrupt literature. They hop
into the store, into the shop, into the
home, into the gaTret, into the cellar,
on the drawing-rOOm table, and on the
shelves Of the library. One of them
hops on the schOOl-bOy's hand while the
teacher is looking the other way. A
young woman reading the forbidden
novelette, by gas-Iight, after she has re-
tired at night, has one of them jump on
her pillow. They leap into great many
of the news-stands. The mail-bags a
he pOstOffice empty hundreds of them
on the floor. The magicians of litera-
tuTe, instead of destroying them, help
increase the number. The land is
possessed with them. 1t is one of the
most devastating, lOathsOme, ghastly
and frightful of the ten plaques of our
modern cities. / do not put the case too
strongly when | say that One-half Ot the
books printed and of the newspapers pub
liShed ought never to see the light.
They are so full of pestilence that the
whole land swelteTs in the moral epi-
demic. The literature of a nation must
decide the morals of the nation. If
good books predOminate, virtue predOmi-
mates. IF bad books are in the majority,
then vice Teigns. begin with the liteTa-
ture lowest down, that which pretends
to TO good, and from cover to cover is
scab of leprOsy. There are hundreds of
men whose entire business 1t Is to dis
pose of this class Of literature. They
show them to lads on the street. They
names of the students at the colleges
and the female seminaries, and send
their evil pamphlets and advertisements
of iniquity to every place. During the
absence of the President of one of the
finest young ladies' seminaries on our
Atlantic Coast a miscreant called and
obtained a catalogue of the students.
The President, returning and finding
out what had been done, Immediately
reported his fears to public authority,
and after a long search the villain was
found, having in his possession not only
catalogue of that institution, but of
fourteen colleges, in eight Of which
there had already been done damning
work with some of the students. The
President of the college writes: 81 do
not dare to publish catalogue, on ac-
count of these scamps." In possession
of leprOus dealers of this sort were found
the names and pOstOffice addresses of
over nine hundred thousand persons to
whom they thought it might be adyan-
tageOus to send their catalogues. InlS13
there were one hundred and slXty-tiye
different STYLES of these books, which are
the transcript of hell, published in the
United States, and they swept across the
land with bosom of destruction. These
books are the author of suicide and
divorce and woes that take in all time
and all eternity. One of these publish
ers sent forth twenty different kinds of
books of this corrupt style, each one
seemingly worse than its predecessor.
If twenty-fOuT tons of salaciOus literat
ure had been destroyed by the Society
for the Prevention of Vice, there is
enough left to bring on the land the
thunderbolts of an incensed God. What
is more remarkable is that more of the
the publishers of these abandoned books
have lived in Brooklyn than in any city
of the United States. They lived here
and attended to business in New York,
some of their factories oil, this side the
East River and some on the other, but
they dared to make their residence in
this City of Churches. Driven out from
this city entirely, or for the most part
now, these vultures will light on some
other field, and they need to be pursued
and exterminated from ChTistendOm.
The evil became so great that in 1868
law was passed by the Congress of the
United States fOrbidding the transmits
sion of corrupt pamphlets and books
through the United States mails. But
that law had so many loops through
which all people might crawl that it
was a dead failure. In 1873 another
law was passed that caught multitude
of seOundrels in all parts of the land,
and their stocks of goods were con-
fiscated, and they were thrown into
.aV,srf J. lfs.Nn