Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1891-03-13
PERNICIOUS LITERATURE
DR. TALMAGE COMPARES 1T TO
THE PLAGUE OF FROGS.

influence.
New YORK. March 8, 1s91.-The plague
Of pernicous literature formed the subject
of DIR. Talmage's sermon today. which was
the tn I'd of the sci les he Is preaching ON
the Ten Plaques of the Cities" The
text of the preachers discourse was taken
from Exodus 3. 81: 'And the frogs came
up and covered the land Of Egypt. And
the magicians did so with Their enchant-
ments. and brought up frogs upon the
land OF Egypt"
There is almost an 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 embalmed, and to-
day their remains may be found among
the sepulchre5 Of Thebes. These creatures,
so attractive once TO the Egyptians, ut
divine tehest became obnoxious and loath-
some, and they went croaklng ana hopping
and Looping into the palace of the king
and into the bread trays and the touches
OF the people. and even the ovens, which
now are upliited above the earth ard on
the SIDE OF the chimneys, but then were
small holes in the earth with sunken pot
terry, We're filed with frogs when the
housekeepers came 10 look at them. il
man sat down to eat, frog al.ghted on
his plate. If he attempted to put on
shoe, it was prcoccup ed by a frog. Ii he
attempted TO put his head upon pillow, it
had been taken possession OF by frog.
Frogs high and low and everywhere;
loathsome frogs, Shiny frogs, besieging
frogs innumerable frogs, great III que of
frogs. What made the after worse. the
mag clans said there was no Miracle in
this, and they could by sleieht of-haud
! 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 became IA
serpent, and then he took hold of it and
by miracle il again became a staff, the
! serpent charmers initiated the same thing,
and knowing that there were serpents in
Egypt which by peculiar pressure on tho
neck would become as rigid as a STICK of
wood, they seemed to change tho s,rp mt
into the staff, and then, throwing it down,
the staff became the serpent. 50 likewise
these magicians tried to initiate the plague
of frogs and perhaps by smell of food at
tracting great number of them to GER
tain point, or by shaking them out from a
hidden place. the magicians sometimes
seemed to accomplish the same miracle.
J
worse, none OF them tried TO make it bet
ter. "t'rogs came up and covered the
land of Egypt, and the mag clans 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. the home,
into the cellar, into the garnet, on the shelf
tf 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
standsof the country, and the mails at the
/ post-otfice shake out ia 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 frightiul, one Of the most
CHASTITY OF the ten plaques of our mondern
cities. There is vast number of books
and newspapers printed and published
! which ought never 10 see the ligb.. They
are filled with pest.lencc that makes the
land swelter with moral epidemic. The
greatest blessing that ever came to this
| nation is that of an elevated literature,
and the greatest scourge has been tat of
unclean literature. Tbs last has its
victims in all occupations and departments.
II has helped TO fill insane asylums and
pehitentiaries and almshouses and dens of
shame The bodies of this nf( ct on lie in
the hospitals and in the graves, while their
souls are being tossed over into lost
eternity, an avalanche of horror and
despair. The London plague was nothing
10 It, That counted its victims by
thousands, but this modern pest has
already shoveled its millions into the
CLEARINGHOUSE of the morally dead. The
| lorg est rail train that ever ran over the
Erie or Hudson tracks was not long enough
nor large enough TO carry the beIstlncss
and the pItrefaction which have been
gathered up in the last twenty years. The
literature of nation decides the fate of a
nation. Good books, good morals. Bad
books, bad morals.
begin with the lowest Of all the litera-
| ture, that which does not even pretend TO
| be respectable from cover TO cover botch
of leprosy. There are many whose entire
4 bholh ~ ID W ulSpOob VI ludl htuu Oh llJ-
erature. They display it before the school,
boy on his way home. They get the cata-
logues of schools and colleges, take the
names and postof1lce addresses, and send
their advertisements and their circulars
and ther pamphlets and their books to
every one of them.
In the possession of these dealers in bad
literature were found nine hundred thou
sand names and postonice addresses, 10
whom II was thought it might be profitable
to send these corrupt things. In the year
1873 there were one hundred and sixty-hve
establishments engaged in publ .shing cheap
corrupt literature. From enc publish .ng
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 Suppress
sion of Vice. still there is enough of il left
in this country to bring down upon US the
thunderbolts of an incensed God.
In the year 1865, the evil had become so
great in this country that tho Congress of
the United States passed law forbidding
the transmission of bad literature through
the United States mails; but there were
large loops in that law through which Grim
inals could crawl out, and the law was q
dead failure-that law Of iR6R Rut in