Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1893-05-31
EVIL LITERATURE.
A FIFTH GATE TO HELL IN MODERN
BABYLON.

ira Horrible Hour With Newsboy.
visit totie Sewsstands--Cases of Youth
ill Deprayiiy-The Cause of the Evil.
NEW York. May Extraordinary
interest continues to be manifested in
New York in the delivery of a series of
sermons on ''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 Matthew 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 is no past so long as books shall
live" Books 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 it
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 that books are embalmed
minds. It is a mistake. They are the
incarnation Of immortal minds The
wars Of the future viii 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 III 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-
tiers 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 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 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
Ia IS n hui
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"
Their 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 marvelously 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 pestilence. developed
from so small 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
fatal fascination about evil thus incar-
mated in letters. Aytoun said of this
thought:
I've heard that poison sprinkled 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 ii 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 DEVILS voice
Sinks deeper in the ear
Than any whispers sent from heaven,
However soft and clear.
About the printed page filled with evil
thought there is 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
gushing to those brought in contact.
The wise
Minstrel and ssge-out of their 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, "or else damn us.
RIVALS THE AURORA BoREALIs.
The evil book is the book that sells in
today's world, and it seems to have been
" 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