Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1891-03-13

loadstonc, which, plunged amid steel and
brass filings gathers up the steel and re-
pels the brass But it is generally the
opposite If you attempt to plunge
through Il fence of burrs to get one
blackberry you will get more burrs than
blackberrics.
You cannot afford to read Il bad book,
however good you are. You say: "rhe
influence is insignificant. / tell you
that the scratch of q pin has sometimes
produced lockiaw. Alas. if through
curiosity. as many do, you pry into an
evil book Your curiosity is as dangerous
as that of the man who would take
torch into gunpowder mill merely to
sec whether ii would really blow up or
not. In a menagerie Il man put his arm
through the bars of black leopards
cage. The animals hide looked so sleek
and bright aud beautiful. He just
strolled it once. The monster seized him,
aud he drew forth Il hand torn and
manglcd aud bleeding.
The clock strikes at midnight A fair
form bends over a romance. The eyes
fash fire. The breath is quick and liz
regular Occasionally the color daShcs
to Tie cheek and then dies out The
hand shakes as though some guardian,
spirit were trying to shake the book out
of tho grasp. Hot tears fall. She laughs
with shrill voice that drops dead at its
own sound. The sweat on the brow is
the spray dashed up from the river OF
death. The clock strikes four, and tho
rosy dawn soon after begins to look
through the lattice at the pale form chat
looks like Il detained spcctcr OF the night
Soon in a madhouse she will mistake her
rngcts for curling serpents. and thrust
her white hand through the bars of the
prison, and s,nite her head, rubbing it
back Us though to push the scalp from
the skull. shricking: My brain. my
brain!" Oh, stand off from that! Why
will yon go sounding your way amid the
reefs and warning buoys, when there is
such vast ocean in which you may voy-
age, all sail seto
We see SO many books VIC do not UNI
derstand what book is. Stand it on end.
Measure 1.-THE height of it, the depth
OF it, the length of it. the breath of it.
You cannot do it. Examine the paper
and estimate the progress made from the
time of the impressions on clay, and then
on the bark of trees, and from the bark
of trees to papyrus, and from papyrus
to the hide of wild beasts, and from the
miracles of our modern paper manufac-
tories, and then see the paper, white and
pure as an infants soul waiting orGod's
inscription.
A book! Examine the type of it.
Examine tho printing of it, and see tho
progress from the time when Solon's
laws were written on oak planks. and
Ucsiod's poems were written on tables of
lead, and the Siniatic commands were
written on tables of stone, on down to
Hoes perfccting printing press.
A book. 1t took all the universities
of the past, all the martyr fires, all the
civilizations, all the battles, all the vic.
tories, all the defeats, all the glooms, all
the brightness, all the centuries to make
it possible.
A book! 1t is the chorus of tho ages;
it is the drawing room in which kings and
queens and orators and poets and histo-
rians come out to greet you. If Il wor-
SHIPPED anything on earth I would wor-
ship that. If l burned incense to
any idol 1 would build an altar to
that. Thank God for good books,
healthful books, inspiring books, Chris
tian books, books of men, books of wo-
men, Book of God. 1t is with these good
books that we are to overcome corrupt
literature. Upon the frogs swoop with
these eagles. l depend much for the
overthrow of iniqujtous literature upon
the mortality of books. Even good
books have a hard struggle to live.
Against every bad pamphlet send a
good pamphlet; against every unclean
picture send an innocent picture; against
! every scurrilous song send Christian
song; against every bad book send good
book: and then it will be as it was in an
cient Toledo, where the Toletum missals
were kept by the saints is six churches,
and the sacrilegious Romans demanded
that those missals be destroyed, and that
the Roman missals be substituted; and
the war came on and am glad to say
that the whole matter having been re-
ferred to champions, the champion of the
Toletum missals with one blow brought
down the champion of the Roman mis-
sails.
So it will be in our day. The good
| literature, the Christian literature, in it's
championship for God and the truth, will
bring down the evil literature in it's
! championship for the devil. I feel ting
ling to the tips Of my fingers and through
| all the nerves of my body, and all the
depths of my soul, the certainty of our
triumph. Cheer up, oh, men and women
who are toiling for the publication of
society! Toll with your faces in the sun
light sIf God be for us, who, who can
be against us?''
| Lady Hester Stanhope was the daugh-
! ter of the third Earl of Stanhope, and
after her nearest friends had died she
went to the far East, took possession of q
deserted convent, threw up fortresses
among the mountains of Lebanon,
opened the castle to the poor, and the
wretched, and the sick who would come
in. She made her castle home for the
unfortunate. She was &; devout Christ
ian woman. She was waiting for the
coming OF the Lord. She expected that
the Lord would descend in person, and
she thought upon it until it was tco much
for her reason. In the magnificent sta
| bles of her palace she had two horses
groomcd and bridled and saddlcd and
| caparisoned and all ready for the day in
which her Lord should decend. and he on
| one of them and She on the other should
start for Jerusalem. the city of the Great
King. 1t was fanaticism and q delu-
sion; but there was romance, and there
was splendor, and there was thrilling ex-
pcctation in the dream!
All, my friends, we need no earthly