Milford chronicle., 1891-03-13

specter ever since. 1 have in agony of soul
on my knees before God, prayed that Ia,
would obiterate from my soul the memory
of it, but 1 shall carry the damage Of it un
til the day Of my death" The assassin o.
Sir William Russell declared that he gut
the inspiration for his crime by reading
what was then new and popular novel
Jack Sheppard" Homer's "niad" made
Alexander the warrior Alexander said
so. The story Of Alexander made Julius
/ Caesar and Charles XII both men of blood
Have you in your pocket, or in your truslk
or in your desk at business a bad book, a
bad picture, a bad pamphlet In Gods
name warn you to destroy it.
THE CHRISTIAN PRESS.
| 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 women. What are you readings Alb
| STUN from all those books which. while
they had some good things about them,
have also an admixture of evil. You have
read books that had two elements in them
the good and the bad. Which stuck
to your The badl The heart Of most peO-
pie slike sieve, which lets theismall par
ticles of gold fall through, but keeps the
great cinders. Once in a while there is a
mind like loadstone, which, plunged
amid steel and brass filings, gathers up the
steel and repels the brass. But tits gener-
ally the opposite. If you attempt TO plunge
through fence OF burrs to get one black
berry you will get more burTs than black
berries
Vo,, ,o,,,,,,t ,.fe..5 q, - . IL ~
however good you are. You say, "The in
tiuence is insignificant" l tell you that
the scratch Of a pin has sometimes pro
duced lockjaw. Alas, il through curiosity,
as many do, you pry into an evil book,
your curiosity is as dangerous as that OF
the man who woald take a torch into
gunpowder mill merely to see whether it
would really blow mp or not. In a menag-
erie man put his arm through the bars
of black leOpard's cage. The animals
hide looked 50 sleek and bright and beauti-
ful. lie just stroked it once. The monster
seized him, and he drew forth hand torn
and mangled and bleeding.
Oh, touch not evil even with the faintest
strOkel Though it may be glossy and
beautiful, touch it not lest you pull forth
your soul torn and bleeding under the
clutch Of the black leopard. But" you
say, show can 1 find out whether book is
good or bad without reading its" There is
always something suspicious about a bad
book. never knew an exception-sOme-
thing suspicious in the index or style Of
illustration. This venomous reptile almost
always carries q warning rattle.
The clock strikes midnight. A fair form
bends over a romance. The eyes flash fire.
The breath is quick and irregular. Oe-
casionally the color dashes to the cheek, |
and then dies out. The hands tremble as
though a guardian spirit were trying to |
shake the deadly book out of the grasp. |
Hot tears fall. She laughs with shrill |
voice that drops dead at its own sound. |
The sweat on her brow is the spray dashed /
up from the river of death. The clock |
strikes four, and the rosy dawn soon after 4
begins to look through the lattice upon the |
pale form that looks like detained specter /
OF the night. Soon in mad house she will /
mistake her ringlets for curling serpents. /
and thrust her white hand through the |
bars Of the prison, and smite her head, /
rubbing it back as though to push the scalp /
from the skull, shrieking; 'My brain! my
brainW Oh, stand off from that! Why /
will you go sounding your way amid the
reefs and warning buoys, when there is
such vast ocean in which you may voy-
age. all sail set?
WHAT IS A BOOK?
We see so many books we do not un-
derstand what book is. Stand it on
end. Measure 1.-THE height of it, the
depth of it, the length Of it, the breadth
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 to the bark of
trees, and from the bark Of trees to papy-
rus, and from papyrus to the hide of wild
beasts, and from the hide of wild beasts
on down until the miracles Of our modern
paper manufactures, and then see the pa
per, white and pure as an infants soul,
waiting for Gods inscription.
A book Examine the type of it. Ex-
anime the printing Of it, and see the prog
ress from the time when SOlon's laws were
written on oak planks, and HesiOd's poems
we're written on tables Of lead, and the
Siniatic commands were written on tables
If stone, on down to Hoes perfecting
printing press. j
A book It took all the universities of /
.he past, all the martyr fires, all the civil
cations, all the battles, ali the victories,
III the defeats, all the glooms, all the
all the centuries to make it
possible.
A book! It is the chorus Of the ages; it
s the drawing room in which kings and
lueens and orators and poets and historians
ome out to greet you. If I worshiped
on earth / would worship that.
I l burned incense to any idol I would ]
'uild an altar to that Thank God for /
,ood books, healthful books, inspiring
'ooks, Christian books, books of men,
looks Of women, Book Of God. It is with |
hese good books that we are to overcome
orrupt literature, Upon the frogs swoop \
nth these eagles. depend much for the I
verthrow Of iniquitous literature upon l
be mortality Of books. Even good books I
ave hard struggle to live,
Polybius wrpte forty books; only Ave OF /
hem left. Thirty books Of Tacitus have {
erished, Twenty books Of Pliny have
erished. Livy wrote one hundred and t
1rty bOoksi only thirty-fve Of them re- I
lain. Hschylus wrote one hundred
ramas; only seven rehain. Euripides :
'rote over a hundred; only nineteen re- {
lain. Varro wrote the biographies of
yer seven hundred great Romans. Ali
hat wealth of biography has persisted,
good and valuable books have such a l
,ruggle to live, what must be the fate Of T
Aboe Nl#eAe pAI AA1luaIA anu N0AAAls eAAA
lasted at the very start. They will die as a
ne frogs when the Lord turned back the 9
lague. The work of Christianization will q
0 on until there will be nothing left but p
ood books, and they win take Che su- c
remacy Of the world. May you and I live g
see the illustrious dayl
FIGHT THE BAD WITH THE GOOD. 3
Against every bad pamphlet send a good
amphlet; against every unclean picture q
nd an innocent picture; against every I
song send Christian song; Il
yainst every bad book send good book;
i'd then it win be as it was in ancient u
oledo, where the Toletum missals were 8
spt by the saints in six churches, and the p
crilegious Romans demanded that those p
issals be destroyed, and that the Roman ~
issals be substituted; and the war came 2!
!, and ! am glad to say that the whole 8
alter having been referred to champions, y
lie champion Of the Toletum missals with g
le blow brought down the champion Of
le Roman missals.
So it viii be in our day. The good liter