Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-02-01
THE PRESS A FIXTURE.
WRITTEN ron THE DrsrArcH.I

would make the demons of the vasty deep
bring water, he read it out aloud. And the
demons hurried in with water buckets, like
fire brigade, and they brought water, and
water, and more water, and still more
wateH until the magician's apprentice began
TO think OF the man who prayed for rain and
got the whole Euphrates on his farm. He
turned over leaf after leaf in the book of in
cantation, and looked into volume after vol
ume in his masters library of choice and
useful sorcery, trying to discover the other
spell that would make the fiends stop bring
ing water, but he could not find it. Thus
was the magician's apprentice drowned at
last by the spirits he himself had sum-
moned.
1t is considerably easier to set things
going than it is to stop them after they are
set going. The Law and Order Society are
just now teaching us this most instructive
lesson. The real mischief was done when
mankind was taught to read. The magician's
apprentice, who ought long ago to have
been set before the Alderman and fined.
was the meddling fellow who invented
printing. There are always people who can
not leave well enough alone. They must be
forever experimenting, trying to make i'm
provements. trying to introduce unwelcome
innovations, peeping wherever they can
into that great volume of incarnation which
we call the book of nature, and reading
out spells that bring all sorts of
calamity upon us. How much better
to have left things as they were in the
ages of faith when nobody knew how
to read except the parson! 1t was inevita-
BILE that the vicious habits of printing and
reading, once introduced into the world,
would go on and increase; that books would
multiply like the buckets of water in the old
story, and that ut last we would bring upon
ourselves the final and crowning iniquity of
the Sunday newspapers.
Poweriess to Destroy the Press.
However, here we are, the printing
press, that invention OF the evil one, fitly
ministered to by .prin ters' devil, is here and
we are really powerless to destroy it. How
ever much we may desire it, we really can
not go back to sheepsktns and Illuminated
missals and black-letter. The paper-covered
novel has arrived and overspread the land
like the flies and frogs of Egypt, and shows
stalwart intentions OF remaining. And the
Sunday newspaper smiles at the Law and
Order Society, as the water-bringing spooks
grinned at the magician's apprentice while
he was hunting for the antidotal spell.
There is a newsstand at Milan, Just be-
meath the shadow of that marvel
ously majestic cathedral, within plain
sight OF that legion of stone saints
who climb over the walls and roof as
if the great church were some sacred noun
tain, one of the everlasting hills with
Svision of Paradise from the top OF it: the
hands of the sculptured saints are held out
in unconscious benediction over this array
of papered-coveredp poison. 1 spent good
while looking from the book stall to the
church, and from the church back to the
book stall, and thinking. The books were
dressed in gaudy colors, decorated with
flaming pictures of strange women, and
christened with titles fit for members of the
family of Satan. They belonged to the
library of the world, the flesh and the devil.
They were intended to instruct men in the
art OF transposing themselves into unclean
animals. 1t was curious sight to see them
set for sale there in the shadow of the
church. The church seemed powerless as
the magicians apprentice against these
busy flends.
l have seen books, which 1 have no doubt
were quite as bad, SOLD in sight of Presby-
terian churches here in Pittsburg. The
paper-covered novel is every day getting
bolder and more shameless, and becoming
menace to the manhood and womanhood of
the country. / wish the Law and Order
Society would get after the paper-covered
novel. These books ought to be stamped,
like the apothecary's labels, with a skull
and crossbones, and marked spoison."
Whoever reads them poisons his own soul.
Most All the Books Worth Reading.
AND yet there are most excellent paper
covered novels. Most books published by
reputable publishing houses are worth read
ing. Most books published by unknown Or
disreputable publishing houses are bad read
ing. The traveller who buys paper-covered
novel, written by an author whom he does
not know, and issued by publisher of whom
he has never heard, ought consistently to
resort on his arrival, to some cheap lodging
house on some back street. No man has any
business to be more particular about his
body than about his mind.
If the magician's apprentice had been
young man of better sense he would have
given up his search for an antidotal spell.
He would have let the demons go on bring
ing water. He would have proceeded to con-
struct some sort of sluceway out of the
magician's room to carry off the water, and
by the side of this perpetual stream he
would have constructed a mill-wheel and a
mill. He would have made his fortune. He
would have transferred the fiends them
selves into ministering angels.
What we want to do, it seems to me, is not
to hunt about, like the Law and Order
Society, for ancient incanta tions, but some.
how to turn what threatens to be evil into
good.
People Determined to Read Every Day.
PEOPLE are going to read. They are
even going to read on Sunday. There is no
use trying to treat them as small children
were treated in 1894. The people of Pitts
burg cannot be set in a chimney corner with
a good book''-the good book being selected
by the Law and Order Society-and kept
there all day Sunday. The only good books
are interesting books. Books that do not
interest do no good. We must choose our
own books. That is the only way in which
we can possibly be interested. The chances
are that if We afford to read the fine
monthly magazines we will read them on
Sunday afternoon. II we cannot afford to
read these excellent periodicals, we will
read Sunday newspaper. The Sunday
newspaper is the magazine of the working
man.
1t is hypocrisy to pretend that all good
people spend all their spare time on Sunday
reading religious books. 1 doubt if the Law
and Order Society themselves confine their
Sunday reading altogether to theology. Nor
do believe that Sunday was ever intended
to be a day destitute of pleasure, bug
bear, q weekly strait jacket. After all, Sun
day is the day of rest, and was meant for
man. The Scribes and Pharisees were for
ever finding fault with the Master because
He did not keep the Sabbath in their way.
He kept it, they thought, in very lax way
And the Scribes and Pharisees are not all
dead yet. The purpose of the day or rest is
to minister to all the needs of man. be- |
lieve, of course, that the man OF woman who |
willingly stays away from the House OF God |
on that day is quite as unreasonable |
mi w hn au1d