The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1891-03-18
AN IMMORAL LITERATURE.
TALmAeE CLASSES 1T AS A PLAGUE.
Many Souls Are Destroyed Through the
Innusnes OF Corrupt Books-How They
should Be suppresssd-Ths Value
OF Clean Literature.

pTen Plaques OF the Cities" The Brook
lyn Academy of Music was filed in the
morning by dense crowd eager to hear
II, and at night at the Christian Herald
service in the New York Academy of
music the doors had to be closed long be-
fore the hour of service, there being no
space available within the building for
more hearers. So largo is the number of
those every week disappointed of gaining
admission that the project of hiring the
Madison Square Garden has been revived.
One citizen has offered to pay all ex-
penses if the garden can be secured, and
DR. Talmage can be induced to preach in
it. The text of the preachers discourse
was taken from Exodus viii, 81: "And
the frogs came up and covered the land Of
Egypt. And the magicians did so with
their entertainments, and brought up frogs
upon the land OF Egypt"
There is almost universal aversion to
frogs, and yet with the Egyptians they
were honored, they were sacred and they
were objects of worship while alive, and
after death they were embalmed. and to-
day their remains may be found among
the sepulchers of Thebes. These crea-
lures, so attractive once to the Egyptians,
ct divine behest became obnoxious and
Ioathsome. and they went croaking and
hopping and leaping into the palace % the
king, and into the bread-trays and the
touches OF the people, and even the ovens.
which now are up'ifted above the earth
he ofI ~ OH Int thnn
were small holes in the earth with sunken
pottery, were flied with frogs when the
housekeepers came to look at them. Ii a
man sat down to eat frog alighted on his
plate. If he attempted to put on shoe it
was preoccupied by a frog. If he at
tempted to put his head upon pillow it
had been taken possession of by a frog.
Frogs high and low and everywhere;
ioathsome frogs, Shiny frogs, besieging
frogs, innumerable frogs, great plague of
frogs. What made the matter worse, the
magicians said there was no miracle in
this, and they could, by slei9ht of hand.
produce the same thing, and they seemed
TO succeed, for by seight of hand wonders
may be wrought. After Moses had thrown
down his staff, and by miracle it became
a serpent, and then he took hold of it, and
by miracle it again became a staff, the
eerpent-charmers initiated the same thing,
and knowing that there were serpents in
Egypt which, by peculiar pressure on
the neck, would become as rigid as a stick
of wood, they seemed to change the SER
pent into the staff, and then, throwing it
down, the staff became the serpent. So
likewise these magicians tried to initiate
the plague of frogs, and perhaps by smell
z o,@I okNr N nor NJ hnx
to a certain point, or by shaking them out
from hidden place, the magicians some
times seemed to accomplish the same mir
acle. While these magicians made the
plague worse, none of them tried to make
il better. Frogs came up and covered
the land of Egypt, and the magicians did
so with their enchantment, and brought
up frogs upon the land of Egypt"
Now that plague of frogs has come back
upon the earth. 1t is abroad today. 1t is
shifting this nation. 1t comes in the
shape of corrupt literature. These frogs
hop into the store, the shop, the Office, the
banking house, the factory, into the home,
into the cellar, into the garnet, on the
drawing-room table, on the shelf OF the
library. While the lad is reading the bad
book the teachers face is turned the other
way. One of these frogs hops upon the
page. While the young woman is reading
the forbidden novelette, after retiring at
night, reading by gaslight, one of these
frogs leaps upon the page. Indeed, they
have hoped on the news stands of the
country, and the mails at the postoffice
shake out In the Peterborough hundreds of
them. The plague has taken, at different
times, possession of this country. 1t is
one of the most loathsome, one of the
most frightful, one OF the most CHASTITY Of
the ten plaques of our modern cities.
There is a vast number of books and news
papers printed and published which ought
never to see the light. They are filed
with a pestilence that makes the land
sWelter with moral epidemic.
The greatest blessing that ever came to
this nation is that of an elevated litera-
ture, the greatest scourge has been that of
unclean literature. This last has its VIC
tins in all occupations and departments
1t has helped TO fill insane asylums and
penitentiaries and almshouses and dens of
shame. The bodies of this infection lie in
the hospitals and in the graves, while
their souls are being tossed over into lost
eternity, an avalanche of horror and des-
pair. The London plague was nothing to
it. That counted its victims by thousands,
but this modern pest has already shoveled
its millions into the charnel house of the
utdu. Lie tOukSsb Train That
ever ran over the Erie or Hudson tracks
was not long enough nor large enough to
carry the beastliness and the putrefaction
which have been gathered up in the bad
books and newspapers of this land in the
last twenty years. The literature of a ma
ton decides the fate OF nation. Good
books, good morals. Bad books, bad NOR
ais
/ begin with the lowest OF all the litera-
ture, that which does not even pretend to
be respectable-from cover to cover o
blotch of leprosy. There are many whose
entire business it is to dispose of that kind
of literature. They display it before the
school-boy on his way home. They get
the cata ogues of schools and colleges, take
the names and posioffice addresses, and
send their advertisements and their circu-
lars and their pamphlets and their books
to every one of them.
In the possession OF these dealers in bad
literature were found 900, 900 names and
postofice addresses, to whom il was
thought it might be profitable TO send
these corrupt things. In the year 1873
there were 165 establishments engaged in
publishing cheap, corrupt literature. From
one publishing house there went out
twenty different STYLES Of corrupt books
Although over thirty tons of vile literature
have been destroyed by the society for the
suppression of vice, still there is enough
N-Es = l. 4