The Progress., 1893-05-27
EVIL LITERATURE.
4 FIFTH cATE TO HE'LL ~ MOOER'I
BABYLON.


Visit 10th. observation-disclosures of Youth
fuI Depravity-The Cause of the EViI.
New YORK. May -Extraordinary
interest continues to be manifested in
New York III the delivery Of s"r.cs Of
sermons on The Gates of Hell Ia Mod
ern Babylon" On some days more V"o-
pie are turned from the doors than gain
admission to the hall. Rev. Thomas
Dixon. Jr. delivered this morning the
fifth sermou of the series. The subject
was Obscene Literature" The text
chosen WAS from Matthew xiii. -
Z While men slept his enemy came and
sowed tarcs among the wheat.
The invention of letters was one of the
events in the development of humanity.
The power to record Ilan's thoughts and
transfer them TO future generations
without practical limitation meant tho
endowment Of mans personality on
the earth with practical Immortality.
There is no past so long as books shall
live" Books bind age to age. century to
century. The power of a bool; is IA pow
er that cannot be estimated because we
cannot estimate the different forces it
will touch in different generations. ages
and centuries. The invention of printing
marked the climax Of power in the prog
ress of immOrta!izing thought. 1t has
been said that books are embalmed
minds. 1t is Il mistake. They are the
incarnation Of immortal minds. The
wars of the future will not be fought
with ironclads upon the seas. with guns
cchoing from the hills, the charge of cav
airy, Of infantry. in action. The battles
of the future will he battles of thought.
The weapons used will be the pen and
the printed page. The printing press.
with its lever and its wheels. will he the
engine of war in the coming centuries.
Here the battles Of humanity will be
tonight. and hero 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:
lIark. the world so loud.
And yet the movers OF the world so 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 a little
book of Cotton Mather's entitled DO
ing Good" The murderer of Lord Rus
sell confessed before his execution that
lie was started on his career of crime by
the reading Of a 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, sex
cepting only savages. are governed by
books"
Thee evil power seems even more sub
tie and resistless than their power for
good. Books are made from books. The
power of propagation in evil seems even
more Inarvelously prolific than in good.
Australia IS cursed with the plague of
rabbits. The evil was caused by fool
ish colonst. who brought common spe-
cics of rabbit from Europe and loosed it
il 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 pestilence. developed
from SO small n beginning. Such is the
power Of az evil idea to propagate itself
when once born into the world of litera-
ture. high or low. There seems to be
fatal fascination about evil thus incar-
mated in letters. Aytoun said of this
thought:
I've heard that poison sprinkled flowers
Are sweetcr 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 IL be,
There blends wild. mysterious strain
Of wcirdcsi harmony,
So that tie listener. far away.
Must needs approach the ring
Where on the savage lapand mOors
The dcInon chorus sing.
And believe the devils roice
Sinks deeper In the car
Than any whispers cent fr5fa heaven,
However soft and clear.
About the printed page filled with evil
thought there is a spell. "A 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 repulsive and dis
gusting 10 those brought in contact.
The wise
Minstrel aud sage-out Of their books are clay.
But in their books. from their graves. they
ris.
Angels that side by side upon ones way
Walk with and warn Us.
And the poet might have added with
greater truth. "or else damn us"
RIVALS TIE 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