Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1891-03-20

+ Those of MS who have been on the rail trains
/ have noticed great change in the last few
months and the last year or two. Why have
! nearly all those vile periodicals been kept of
/ the rail trims FOR some time back Who eff
| fected it! These societies for the publication
/ o: railroad literature gave warning to the
publishers and warning to railroad compan-
! les and warning to conductors, and warn
/ ing 70 newsboys TO keep the internal stun
/ of the trains
Many OF the cities have successfully pro-
! hihitad the most OF that literature even from
going on the news stands. Terror has seized
! upon the publishers and the dealers in impure
7 literature from the fact that over a thou
/ sand arrests have teen made. and the aygre-
/ gate time for which the convicted have been
sentenced 10 the prison Is over one hundred
| and min ~ years, and from the fact that
! about two millions Of their circulars have
| been destroyed, and the business is not as
! profitable az it used 10 be.
! How have so many OF the news stands OF
/ oar great cities been purifedl How has so
much OF this in:quity been balSed' By
, moral suasionr Oh, no. You might as well
T 90 into the jungle Of the East Indies and pat
a cobra on the neck, anil with profound ar
! gument try to persuade 1t that 1t is morally
/ wrong to bite and to sting and to poison
! anything. The only answer to your argG-
ment would be au uplifted head and a hiss
/ and sharp rocking tooth struck into your
arteries The only argument for n cobra is
a shotgun, and the only argument 70: these
dealers in impure literature is the clutch Of
the police and the bean soup I ppniten-
tiary. The law! The law! invoke to con-
summate the work so grandly begun
Another way in which we are to drive
back this plague Of Egyptian frogs Is by
filling the minds Of our young people with
! n heallhful literature do not mean to say
o al eh.. L., ,t,F.
families ought 10 be religious books and
newspapers, or that every song ought to be
sung to the tune OF Old Hundred | have
no sympathy with the attempt 90 make the
young old. would rather join in a crusade
10 keep the young young. Boyhood aud girl
hood must not be abbreviated. But there
are good books, good histories, gool biogra-
phies, good works Jf fiction, goo1 books Of
all styles with which we are To fill the minds
Of the young, so that there will be no more
room for the u-clasI and the vicious than
there is room for chafF IL a bushel measure
which is already .ilel with Michigan
wheat.
Why are ffty per cent. of the criminals in
the jaiis and penitentiaries Of the United
States to-day under twenty-one years OF
sge' Many Of them under seventeen, under
sixteen under fifteen, under fourteen, under
thirteen. Walk along ono OF the corridors
of the Tombs prison in New York and look
for yourselves. Bad books, bad newspapers
bewitchel them "a soon rs thCy got out OF
, the cradle. Beware OF all those stories
! which end wrong Beware OF all those
books which make tho road that ends in
pcrditon ssem to end in Paradise. Do not
glorify the dirk and the pistol. Do not cau
the desperate brave or the libertine gallant.
/ Teach our young people that il they go down
/ into the swamps and marshes to watch the
| JACKIE lanterns dance on the decay and
rottcnness they will catch tho malaria and
death.
oh" says some one, II am business
/ man, and | have no tina 70 examine what
my children read have no time toinspect
( the books that come into my household II
your children were threatened with typhoid
fever, would you have time To 20 for the doc
/ tori Woud you have time 70 watch the
progress of the disease! Would you have
time for the funeraly In the presence Of my
Gcd warn you OF the facEthat your chill
1ren are threatened with moral and spirit
nal typhoid, and that unless the thing bs
stopped II will be TO them funeral Of body,
funeral OF mind, funeral Of soul. Three
funerals in one day.
Ny word is TO this vast multitude OF young
people: Do not touch, do not borrow, do
not buy a corrupt book or a corrupt picture.
4 book will decide mans destiny for good
or for evil. The book you read yesterday
may have decided YOU for time and for eter-
lity or it may he a book that may come
/ nto your possessions tomorrow.
= good bOok-who can exaggerate its
: powers Benjamin Franklin said that his
] reading OF Cotton Mather's Essays to Do
! Good In childhood gave him holy Rspira-
! tions for all the rest OF his life. George Law
eclared that biography he read in child
lood gave him all his subsequent prosperi-
lies A clergyman, many years ago, passing
10 the far west, stopped at a hotel. He saw
woman copying something from Dodd.
ridges Rise and Progress" 1t seemed that
! she had borrowed tho book, and there were
some things she wanted especially to re-
member.
The Clergyman had In his sachol a copy Of
I Doddridge's Rise and Progress and so he
made her present OF it, 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 yonder
| in that beautiful house" He went there and
! said to her, do you remember mef' Shs
! ,aid, mo, | do not He said, "Do you re-
member n man gave you Doddridge's Rise
and Progress thirty years agoy' 'Oh, yes;
remember. That book saved my SOUL |
loaned the book to all my neighbors, and
they read l. aud they were converted to God,
and we had revival of religion which swept
through the whole community. We built
church and called n pastor. You see that
spire yonder, don't your That church
was built as tae result of that book you gave
me thirty years ago" Oh, the mower of
good book! But, alas. Tor the influence oil
bad book.
John Angel James, than whom England
never had I holicr minister, stood in his pull
pit az Birmingham and said; twenty-five
years ago lad loaned to me an Infamous
book. He would loan it only fifteen mini
utes, and then had to give it back, but that
book has haunted me like a 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 until the day of my
DEATH TIE assassin of Sir William Rus
sell declared that he got the inspiration for
| his crime by reading what was then new
and popular novel, Jack Sheppard"
Homcr's "Iliad" made Alexander the war
rior. Alexander said so. The story OF
Alexander made julius Cesar aud Charles
XII both men of blood. Have you in yout
pocket or in your trunk, or in your desk ar
business bad book, bad picture, a bad
pamphletH In Gods name warn you to do
stroy it.
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 wo-
men. What are you readingS Abstain from
all those books which, while they had some
good things about them, had also an admix.
turc OF evil You have read books that had
two clements in them-the good and the bad
Which stuck to your The bad The heart
of most people Is like a sieve, which lets the
small partfcles of gold fall through, bu
keeps The great cinders. Once in a while
there is mind like loadstone, which
plunged amid steel and brass filings, gather
up the steel and repeis the brass. But it Il
generally the opposite. II you attempt tC
plunge through a fence Of burrs to get ont
blackberry, you will get more burrs thar
blackberries.
You cannot afford to read a bad book
! however good you are. You say, THE In