Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1891-03-19

properties. A clergyman, many years
ago, passing 10 the far west. stopped at
hotel. He saw woman copying some
thing from Doddridge's Rise and Prog
ress It seemed that she had borrowed
the book, and there were some things she
wanted especially to remember.
The clergyman had in his sachel copy
of Doddridge's Rise and Progress" and
so he made her present OF 1t. Thirty
years passed on. The clergyman came
that way, and he asked where the woman
was whom he had seen SO long ago. "She
lives Wonder in that beautiful house.
He went there and said to her, do
YOU remember mei" She said, mo,
do not.n He said, do you remember a
man gave you Doddridge's Rise and
Progress thirty years ago." "Oh, yes;
remember. That book saved my soul.
loaned the book to all my neighbors, and
they read it and they were converted to
God, and we had revival of religion
which swept through the whole communi-
ty. We built a church and called pastor.
You see that spire Wonder, don't your
That church was built as the result of that
book you gave me thirty years ago." Oh,
the power of a good book But, alas for
the influence of a bad book.
John Angel James, than whom England
never had holier minister, stood in his
pulpit at Birmingham and said: Twenty
five years ago a lad loaned to me an in
famous book He would loan it only tif-
teen minutes, aud then | had to give it
back, but that book has haunted me like
specter ever since. have in agony of soul,
on my knees before God, prayed that he
would obliterate from my soul the memory
of it. but shall carry the damage of it I'M
til the day of my death" The assassin of
Sir William Russell declared that he got
the inspiration for his crime by reading
what was then new and popular novel,
"Jack Sheppard. Homer's "Iliad" made
Alexander the warrior. Alexander said
so. The story Of Alexander made julius
Caesar and Charles XII both men of blood.
Have you in your pocket, or in your trunk,
or in your desk at business a bad book, a
bad picture bad pamphleti In Gods
name l warn you TO destroy it.
THE CHRISTIAN PRESS.
Another way in which we shall fight
back this corrupt literature and kill the
frogs of Egypt is by rolling over them the
Christian printing press, which shall give
plenty of healthful reading to all adults.
All these men and women are reading men
and women. What are You readingS Alb
stain from all those books which, while
they had some good things about them,
have also an admixture Of EVIL. You have
read books that had two elements in them
the good and the bad. Which stuck
to youg The bad The heart of most peo-
pie is like a sieve, which lets the small par
ticles OF gold fall through, but keeps the
great cinders. Once in while there is a
mind like loadstone, which, plunged
amid steel and brass filings, gathers up the
steel and repels the brass. But it is gener-
ally the opposite. If you attempt to plunge
through fence of burrs to get one black
berry you will get more burrs than black
berries.
You cannot afford TO read bad book,
however good you are. You say, "The in
auence is insignificant" | tell you that
the scratch Of a pin has sometimes pro
duced lockjaw. Alas, If through curiosity,
as many do. you pry into an evil book,
your curiosity is as dangerous as that of
the man who would take a torch into a
gunpowder mill merely to see whether it
would really blow up or not. In II menag-
of black leopard's cage. The animals
hide looked so sleek and bright and beauti-
full. lie jast stroked it once. The monster
seized him, and he drew forth a hand torn
and mangled and bleeding.
Oh. touch not evil even with the faintest
strokel Though it may be glossy and
beautiful, touch it not lest YOU pull forth
your soul torn aud bleeding under the
clutch of the black leopard "But,n you
say. chow can find out whether book is
good or bad without reading itf' There is
always something suspicious about bad
book. never knew an eXception-some-
thing suspicious in the index or style OF
illustration. This yenomous reptile almost
always carries warning rattle
The clock strikes midnight. A fair form
bends over a romance. The eyes fash fire.
The breath is quick and irregular DC
casionally the color dashes to the cheek,
and then dies ont. The hands tremble as
though a guardian spirit were trying to
shake the deadly book out Of the grasp.
Hot tears fall. She laughs with shrill
voice that drops dead at its own sound.
The sweat o. her brow is the spray dashed
mn from the river Of death. The clock
strikes four, and the rosy dawn soon after
begins to look through the lattice upon the
pale form that looks like detained specteI
of the night. Soon in a mad house she will
mistake her ringlets for curling serpents
and thrust her white hand through the
bars of the prison, and smite her head
rubbing it back as though to push the scalI
from the skull, shrieking: "My brainl my
braiur Oh, stand off from thatl Why
will you go sounding your way amid the
reefs and warning buoys, when there is
such vast ocean in which you may voy
age, all sail set?
WHAT Is A BOOK?
We SEQ so many books we do not un
derstand what book is. Sta2d Il OF
end. Measure 1.-THE height OF it, the
depth of it, the length of it, the breadth
of it. You cannot do it. Examine
the paper aud estimate the progress!
made from the time of the impressions
on clay, and then on to the bark Of
trees, and from the bark of trees to papy
rus, and from papyrus to the hide Of wil6
beasts, aud from the hide of wild beast
ON down until the miracles of our modern
paper manufactures, and then see the pa
per, white and pure as an infants soul