The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1891-03-13
TALMAGE'S SERMON.

Ah1 ooIaA oAS 49,
OF Rad LITERATURE. A VIVID
PORTRAYAL OF THE POWER OF
GOOD AND yICIoUsNEss OF BAD
LITERATURE.
Brooklyn, March s.-The plague OF
pernicious literature formed the subject
Of DR.. Tslmage's sermon to-day, which
was the third of the series he is preach
ing on the ''Ten Plaques of the Cities"
The text Of the preachers discourse
was taken from Exodus, vii. 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 we're honored, they were sacred,
and they were objects OF worship while
alive, and after death they were en-
balmed, and to-day their remains may
be found among the sepulchres OF
Thebes. These creatures, so attractive
once to the Egyptians, at divine behest
became obnoxious and loathsome, and
they went croaking and hopping and
leaping into the palace of the king, and
into the bread trays and the couches OF
the people, and even the ovens, which
are now uplifted above the earth, and on
the side of chimneys, but then were
small holes in the earth with sunken
po1ery, were filled with frogs when the
housekeepers came to look at them. III
a man sat down to eat a frog alighted on
his plate. If he attempted to put on a
shoe it was preoccupied by frog. 1.-The
attempted to put his head upon pillow
it had been taken possession OF by a
frog. Frogs high and low and every
where; loathsome frogs, Shiny frogs, be-
sieging 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
sleight-of-hand produce the same thing.
and they seemed to succeed, for by
sleight-of-hand great 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 mir
acle it again became staff, the serpent
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
serpent into the staff and then throw
ing it down the staff became the SER
pent. So likewise these magicians tried
to initiate the plague Of frogs, and per-
haps by smell of food attracting great
number of them to a certain point, or by
shaking them out from a hidden place,
the magicians sometimes seemed to &C
complish the same miracle. While
these magicians made the plague worse
none of them tried to make it better.
Frogs came up and covered the land oil
Egypt, and the magicians did so with
their enchantment, and brought W
frogs upon the land of Egypt"
Now that plague of frogs has come
back upon the earth. 1t is abroad to
day. 1t is shifting this nation. II
comes in the shape of corrupt literature
These frogs hop into the store, the shop
the office, he banking house, the fac
tory-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 a
night, reading by gaslight, one OF these
frogs leaps upon the page. Indeed
they have hoped upon the news stands
of the country, and the mails at the
postoffice shake out in the letter trough
hundreds OF them.
The plague has taken, at ditferen
times, possession of this country. 1t Il
one of the most loathsome, one OF thu
most frightful, one of most CHASTITY o
the ten plaques of our modern cities
There is vast number of books anC
newspapers printed and published
which ought never to see the light
They are filled with a pestilenCe tina
makes the land swelter with a mora
epidemic.
The greatest blessing that ever came
to this nation is that of an elevated lit
erature, and the greatest scourge ha'
been that of unclean literature. The
last has its victims in all occupations
and departments. 1t has helped to iii
insane asylums and penitentiaries anc
almshouses and dens of shame. The
bodies OF this infection lie in the hospi
tails and in the graves, while their souls
are being tossed over into lost eternl
ty, an avalanche of horror and despair
The London plague was nothing to 1t
That counted its victims by thousands
but this modern pest has already SHOW
eled its millions into the charnel house
of the morally dead. The longest raj
train that ever ran over the Erie Of
Hudson tracks was notlong enough mol
large enough to carry the beastliness
and the putrefaction which have been
gathered up in bad books and newspa
pers of this land in the last twenty
years. The literature of a nation de-
cides the fate of a nation. Good books,
good morals. Bad hoods, bad morals.
| begin with the lowest of all the lit
erature, that which does not even pre-
! tend to be respectable-frOmc cover tC
cover a blotch of leprosy. There are
many whose entire business it is to dis
pose of that kind of literature. They
display it before the schoolboy on hi:
way home. They get the catalogues O
schools and colleges, take the names
and postoffice addresses and send thell
advertisements and circulars and thell
pamphlets and their books to every one
of them.
In the possession of these dealers IL
bad literature were found 900, 900 name:
and postoffice addresses, to whom i
was thought it might be profitable tt
send these corrupt things. In the yea
1873. there were 165 establishments en-
gagged in publishing cheap, corrupt lit
erature. From one publishing hOus'
there went out twenty different style'
of corrupt books. Although over thir
ty tons of vile literature have been de
stroyed by the society for the suppress
ion of vice, still there is enough of i
left in this country to bring down upor
us the thunderbolts of an incensed God
EXECUTING THE LAW PROMPTLY.
In the year 1868 the evil had become
so great in this country that the con