The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1891-04-01
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S SUN.
DAY SERMON.
Subject: "The Plague of Bad Books"

TEXT: And the frogs came up and COZ
cred the land of Egypt And the magician!
did so ,Uith their enchantments. ana
brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt.
-E1. viii, 81
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 embalmed. end to-day their
remains may be found among the sepulchres
OF Thebes. These creatures, so attractive
once to the Egyptians, at divine behest be-
came 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
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 shoe it was pre-
occupied by frog. If he attempted to put
his head upon pillow it had been taken pos
session Of by frog.
Frogs high and low and everywhere; loath-
some frogs, Shiny frogs besieging frogs, in
Vulnerable frogs, great plague Of frogs.
What made the matter worse the magicians
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 1t became serpent. and then he
took hold of it and by miracle it again be-
came staff, the serpent charmers initiated
the same thing, and knowing that there were
serpents in Egypt which by a peculiar pres
sure on the neck would become as rigid as a
stick Of wood, they seemed to change the SER
pent into the staff, and then, throwing it
down, the staff became the serpent.
So likewise these magcians tried to imi-
tate the plague of frogs, and perhaps by
smell of food attracting great number Of
them to certain point, or by shaking them
out from hidden place, the magicians some
times seemed to accomplish the same mira
Gle. 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 magicians did 80 with their
enchantment, and brought up frogs upon the
land of Egypt"
Now that plague offrogs has come back
upon the earth. 1t is abroad to-day. It 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--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 re-
firing at night, reading by gaslight, one of
they have hoped upon the news stands Of
the country and the mails at the postofice
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 tho most fright.
full, one of the most CHASTITY Of the ten plaques
of our modern cities.
There is vast number of books and news
rapers printed and published which ought
never to see the light. They are filled with
pestilence that makes the land swelter with
moral epidemic. The greatest blessing that
ever came to this nation is that Of an ele-
waited literature, and the greatest scourge
has been that Of unclean literature. This
last has its victims in all occupations and
departments. 1t has helpsd to fill insane
asylums and penitentiaries and almshouses
and dens Of shame. The bodies Of this infec-
ton lie in the hospitals and in the graves,
while their souls are being tossed over into
q lost eternity, an avalanche of horror and
despair.
The London plague was nothing to it.
That counted its victims by thousands, but
this modern pest has already shoveed its
millions into the charnel house of the morally
dead. The longest rail train that ever ran
over the Erie or Hudson tracks was notlong
enough nor large enough to carry the beast
illness and the putrefaction which have been
gathered up in bad books and newspapers Of
this land in the last twenty years. Tho
literature Of O 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 blotch
Of leprosy. There are many whose entire
business it is to dispose Of that kind OF lit
erature They display it before the school,
boy on his way home. They get the cata-
loeues Of schools and colleges, take the
names and postofice addresses, and sent
their advertisements aud their circulars,
and their 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 postofice addresses to
whom it was thought it might be profitable
to send these corrupt things. In the year
1873 there were one hundred and slHty-hve
establishments engaged in publishing cheap,
corrupt literature. From one publishing
house there went out twenty different styles
of corrupt books. Although over thirty
by the Society for the Suppression of Vice,
still there is enough Of it left in this country
to bring down upon us the jlst anger OF an
aroused God.
In the year 1863 the evil had become 80
great in this country that the 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
criminals might crawl out, and the law was
a dead failure-that law of 1868. But in
1873 another law was passed by the Congress
of the United States against the TRANSMISSION
of corrupt literature through the malE-a
grand law, potent law, Christian law
and under that law multitudes OF these
scouudrels have been arrested their property
confiscated and they themselves thrown into
the penitentiaries, where they belonged.
Now, my friends, how are Wa to war
against this corrupt literature, and how are
the frogs Of this Egyptian plague to be
slain? First of all by the prompt and mex,
orable execution Of the law. Let all good
posJmasters. and United States district at
torneys, and detectives, and reformers con-
cert in their action to stop this plague.
When Sir Rowland Hill spent his life in try
ing to secure cheap postage not only for
England, but for all the world, and to open
the blessing of the postoffice to all honest
business, and to all messages Of charity,
and kindness, and affection, for all health
full intercommunication, he did not mean to
make vice easy or to fill the mail bags of the
United States with the scabs OF such
leprosy.
1t ought not to be in the power of every
bad man who can raise one-cent stamp for
q circular OF two-cent stamp for letter to
blast man or destroy home. The postal
service of this country must be clean, must
be kept clean, and we must all understand
that the swift retributions of the United
States Government hover over every VIOLA
tion of the letter box