News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1891-03-12
THE TABERNACLE PULPIT.
DR.. TALMAGE breaches ON
CORRUPT LITERATURE.

Young and Old Are Being Mentally,
Morally and Physically Infected by
Pernicious Books-The Wrong Must Be
Righted-How to Do Tt.
New YORK, March S.-The plague
of pernicious literature formed the sub
iect of DIR. Talmage's sermon today,
which was the third of the series he is
preaching ON the ''Ten Plaques of the
Cities" The Brooklyn Academy of
Music was filled in the morning by a
dense crowd eager to hear it, and at
night at The Christian Herald service,
in the New York Academy of Music,
the doors had to be closed long before
the hour of service, there being no
snace available within the building for
more hearers. So large is the number
of those every week disappointed OF
gaining admission that the project OF
hiring the Madison Square Garden has
again been revived. One citizen has
offered to pay all the expenses If the
Garden can be secured and DR.. Tai
mage can be induced to preach IN 1t.
The text of the preachers discourse
was taken from Elk. viii, 6, z: ''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 a universal aversion
to frogs, and yet with the Egyptian
they were honored, they were sacred,
and they were objects of worship while
alive. and after death they were EN-
balmed, and today their remains may
be found among the sepulchers of
Thebes. These creatures, so attractive
once to the Egyptians, at divine be-
hest 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 now are uplifted above the earth
and on the side of the chimneys, but
then were small holes in the earth
with sunken pottery, were filled with
frogs when the housekeepers came to
look at them. If a man sat down to
eat. frog alighted on his plate. If he
attempted to put on shoe it was pre-
occupied by frog. If he attempted
TO put his head upon pillow it had
been taken possession of by 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
sIeight of hand produce the same thing,
and they seemed to succeed, for by
sleight of hand wonders may be
wrought. After Moses had thrown
down his staff and by miracle it be-
came a.serpent, and then he took hold
of it and by miracle it again became a
staff, the serpent charners initiated
the same thing, and knowing that
there were serpents in Egypt which by
a peculiar pressure on the neck would
become as rigid as q stick of wood,
they seemed to change the serpent into
the staff, and then throwing it down
the staff became the serpent. So like
wise these magicians tried to initiate
the plague of frogs, and perhaps by
smell of food attracting great number
of them to certain point, or by shak-
ing them out from a hidden place, the
magicians sometimes seemed to ac-
complish the same miracle. While these
m2gicians made the plague worse, none
of them tried to make it 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"
MODERN PLAGUE.
Now that plague of frogs has come
back upon the earth. 1t is abroad to-
day. 1t is shifting this nation 1t
comes in the shape of corrupt litera-
ture 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 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 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
newspapers printed and published
which ought never to see the light.
They are filled with a pestilence that
makes the land swelter with a moral
epidemic. The greatest blessing that
ever came to this nation is that of an
elevated literature, and the greatest
scourge has been that of unclean liter
ature This last has its victims in all
occupations and departments. 1t has
helped to Gil insane asylums and peni-
tentiaries and almshotises and dens Of
shame The bodies of this infection
while their souls are being tossed over
into a lost eternity, an avalanche OF
horror and despair. The London
plaque was nothing to it. That count
ed its victims by thousands, but thi:
modern pest has already shoveled It's
millions into the charnel house of the
morally dead The longest rail train
that ever ran over the Erie or Hudson |
tracks was not long enough no, large |
enough to carry the beastliness and the
putrefaction which have been gathered |
mp in bad books and newspapers Of |
aiis land in the last twenty years. The
literature of a nation decides the fate |
nf {; nation. Good books, good morals.
BAD books, bad morals.
begin with the lowest of all the lit
fr1tIre, that which does not even pra-
tend to be respectaNle-from cover 70
cover a blotch of leprosy. There ara
Iuany whose entire business it is to dis i
pose of that kind of literature. They |
display it before the schooIboy ON kis |
way home. They get the catalogues
of schools and colleges, take the names
and postoffice addresses and send their
advertisements, and their circulars, and
their pamphlets, and their books to
every one of them.
SENDING OUT BAD BOOKS.
In the possession of these dealers in
bad literature were found nine hun
dred thousand names and postoffice
addresses, to whom it was thought it
might be profitable to send these cor