The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1893-05-25
EVIL LITERATURE.
a FIFTH GATE TO HELL IN MODERN
BABYLON.

Jr.--A Horrible Hour with Newsboy.
Visit to the observation-disclosures of Youth
full Depravity--The Cause Of the Evil.
New York, May 21.-Extraordinar
interest continues to be manifested in
New York in the delivery of series of
sermons on 1.-THE Gates Of He'll In Mod
ern Babylon" On some days more peo-
pie are turned from the doors than gain
admission to the hall. Rev. Thomas
Dixon, Jr., delivered this morning the
fifth sermon of the series. The subject
was "Obscene Literature" The text
chosen was from eMatthew xiii, 25,
"While men slept his enemy came and
sowed tares among the wheat"
The invention Of letters was one of the
events In the development of humanity.
The power TO record mans thoughts and
transfer them to future generations
without practical limitation meant the
endowment Of mans personality on
the earth with practical immortality.
"There Ia no past SO long as books shall
hve." Pooks bind age to age, century TO
century. The power of book is pow
er that cannot be estimated because we
cannot estimate the different forces IL
will touch in different generations, ages
and centuries. The invention Of printing
marked the climax of power in the prog
ress Of immortalizing thought. 1t has
been said tnat books are embalmed
minds. II is a mistake. They are the
incarnation of immortal minds. The
wars Of the future will not be fought
with ironclads upon the seas, with guns
echoing from the hills, the charge of cav
airy, Of infantry, in action. The battles
Of the future will be battles Of thought.
The weapons used will be the pen and
the printed page. The printing press,
with its lever and its wheels, will be the
engine of war in the coming centuries.
Here the battles Of humanity will be
fought, and here they will be settled.
Books, after all, are the powers that
today are slowly fashioning the charac-
ters for the two great armies in this de-
cisive struggle. Well has the poet said:
Hark, the world so loud,
And yet the movers of the world 30 still.
Emerson has most forcefully said, 'In
every mans memory. with the hours
when life eliminated are usually asso-
ciated certain books which met his
views" Benjamin Franklin declares
that his character was formed and his
life shaped by the reading of little
book of Cotton Mather's entitled "Do-
ing Good The murderer of Lord Rus
sell confessed before his execution that
he was started on his career Of crime by
the reading of trashy book. If every
wrecked character could be uncovered
and its secrets shown to the world, the
beginnings Of wrongdoing would be
found in thousands Of cases to have their
source in these silent fashioners of mems
characters through their thoughts. "All
the known world" says Voltaire, "ex-
cepting only savages, are governed by
books"
Their evil power seems even more SUBJ
tie and resistless than their power for
good. Books are made from books The
power of propagation in evil seems even
more marveleusly prolific than in good.
Australia is cursed with the plague of
rabbits. The evil was caused by fool
ish colonist, who brought common spe-
cies of rabbit from Europe and loosed it
In Australia. This senseless act has
caused the nation millions of pounds
sterling. Crops have been destroyed and
whole sections brought to the verge of
starvation by this pestilenoe. developed
from 80 small a beginning. Such is the
power of an evil idea to propagate itself
when once born into the world of litera-
ture, high or low. There seems to be q
fatal fascination about evil thus incar-
mated in letters. Aytoun said of this
thought:
I've heard that poison sprtnkled flowers
Are sweeter in perfume
Than when, untouched by deadly dew,
They opened in their bloom.
I've heard that with the witches song,
Though harsh and rude 1t be,
There blends wild, mysterious strain
OF weirdest harmony,
So that the listener. far away,
Must needs approach the ring
Where on the savage Lapland moors
The demon chorus sing.
And believe the devil'sHoice
Sinks deeper in the ear
Than any whispers sent from heaven,
However soft and clear.
About the printed page filed with evil
thought there is spell, fascination,
which gives false color to the events
described. Could the events themselves
be seen in their bald reality and the au-
thor or editor stripped of his power to
fascinate through the spell of letters
the result would be repulsiye and dis
gusting to those brought ia contact.
Minstrel and sage-out Of o1edr books are clay,
But In their books, as from their graves, they
rise
Angels that side by side upon ones way
Walk with and warn us.
And the poet might have added with
greater truth, cor else damn u.s."
RIVALS THE AURORA .BoREALIs.
The evil book is the book that sells in
today's world, and it seems to have been
so through the ages of the past, Learn
ing has gained most by books by which
the printers have lost, the sage tells us.
Books that make history have been sold
for song and have failed of any popular
success, while books that live only to
curse the thousands are gold mines for
their publishers.
The modern city is the center of the
book world. It is the center of book
production and book distribution. 1t is
the center of letters and of the forces
that shape the supply OF the worlds lit
erature. When Paul presched at Ephesus
and men were convicted of sin, they
brought out their evil books and burned
them in the public places. If all the
evil books Of the modern city were
brought out and made into bonfire, it
would illumine the sky with a splendor