Connecticut western news., 1891-03-11
CORRUPT LITERATURE.
pR. TALMAGE BREACHES A RINGING
 SERMON ON A CRYING EVIL.

Young and Old Arc Being Mentally,
 Morally and Physically Infected by
 Pernicious Books-The Wrong Must Be
 Righted-How to Do It.
 NEW YORK, March S.-The plague of pernicious literature formed the sub- ject of Dr. Tal1nage'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 . 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 space 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. Tal- mage can be induced to preach in it. The text of the preachers discourse was taken from Ex. 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 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 em- 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 man sat down to eat. frog alighted on his plate. If he attempted to put on a shoe it was pre- occupied by frog. If he attempted to put his head upon a pillow it had been taken possession of by frog.
 Frogs high and low and every where; loathsome frogs, slimy 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 sleight 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 a 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 magcians tried to initiate the plague of frogs, and perhaps by smell of food attracting great number of them to a certain point, or by shak- ing them out from a hidden place. the magicians sometimes seemed to ac- conplish 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 of Egypt. and the magiciars did so with their enchantlnent, and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt"
 A MODERN PLAGUE
 Now that plague of frogs has come back upon the earth. It is abroad to- day. It is slniting this nation. It 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 garret, 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 hopped 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 It is one of the most loathsolne, one of the most frightful, one of the most ghastly of the ten plaques of our modern cities
 There is a vast number of books and newspapers printed and published l which ought never to see the light. They are filled with a pestilence that makes the land swelter with a moral 1 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 it's victims in all occupations and departments It has helped to fill insane asylums and peni- tentiaries and almshouses and dens O shame. The bodies of this infection lie in the hospitals and in the graves, while their souls are being tossed over into a lost eternity, an avalanche ot horror and despair. The London plague was nothing to it. That count ed it's victims by thousands, but this modern pest has already shoveled its 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 TO- large
 enough to carry the beastliness and the