Connecticut western news., 1898-01-27
FORBIDDEN SWEETS.
OR. TAlMAGe EXPOSES TRAPS SET
 FOR uNWARY FEET.


 stroy--Corrupt Books. Alcoholic stimu-
 lants and Gambling Inveighed Against
 Honey From the Eternal Rock.
 | 'opyright. 1898, by American Press Asso-
 ciation.]
 WASHINGTON, Jan. 23-Dr. Talmage here starts with an oriental scene, from which he draws practical lessons as to the allurements which entrap the un- wary, and the discourse will put many on their guard. The text is I Samuel xiv, 43, "I did but taste little honey with the end of the rod that was in my hand. and, To, 1 must die. :"
 The honey bee is most ingenious ar chitect, Christopher Wren among in- Eects; geometer drawing hexagons and pentagons, freebooter robbing the fields of pollen and aroma, wondrous creature of God, whose biography, writ len by Huber and Swammerdam, is an cnchantment for any lover of nature. Virgil celebrated tho bee in his fat ble of Aristaus. and Moses and Samuel and David and Solomon and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and St. John used the delicacies of bee manufacture as a Bible symbol a miracle of formation is the bee. Five eyes, two tongues, the outer having sheath of protection, hairs on all sides If it's tiny body to brush up the parti- cles of flowers, it's flight so straight that ], Il the world knows of the bee line. The honeycomb is paS6ee such as no one but God could plan and the honeybee construct, its cells sometimes dormi- tory and sometimes Q storehouse and sometimes 8 cemetery. These winged toilers first make eight strips of wax, and by their antennR, which are to them hammer and chisel and square and plumb line, fashion them for use. Two and two these workers shape the wall. If an accident happens, they put up buttresses of extra beams to remedy the damage.
 When about the year 1776 an insect before unknown in the nighttime at tackled the beehives all over Europe, and the men who owned them were in vain trying to plan something to keep cut the invader that was the terror of the beehives of the continent, it was found that everywhere the bees had ar ranged for their own protection and built before their honey combs an espe- cial wall of wax with portholes through which the bees might go to and fro, but not large enough to admit the winged combatant called the Sphinx atropos.
 Divine Direction.
 Do you know that the swarming of the bees is divinely directed? The moth- IT bee starts for new home, and be- cause of this the other bees of the hive get into an excitement which raises the heat of the hive some four degrees, and they must die unless they leave their heated apartments, and they follow the mother bee and alight on the branch of tree and cling to each other and hold on until a committee of two or three bees have explored the region and found the hollow of tree or rock not far of from stream of water, and they here set up new colony and ply their aro- matio industries and give themselves to the manufacture of the saccharine edible. But who can tell the chemistry of that mixture of sweetness, part of 1t the very life of the bee and part of it the life of the fields?
 Plenty of this luscious product was hanging in the woods of Bethaven dur ing the time of Saul and Jonathan. Their army was in pursuit of an enemy that by Gods command must be exter- minated. The soldiery were positively forbidden to stop to eat anything until the work was done. If they disfneyed, they were accursed. Coming through the woods, they found place where the bees had been busy-a great honey manufactory-honey gathered in the hollow of the trees until it had over flowed upon the ground in great profu- sion of sweetness. All the army obeyed orders and touched it not save Jona- than, and he, not knowing the military order about abstinence, dipped the end of stick be had in his hand into the candied liquid, and as yellow and tempt ing it glowed on the end of the stick; he put it to his mouth and ate the hon. ey. Judgment fell upon him, and but for special intervention he would have been slain. In my text Jonathan an nounces his awful mistake, "I did but taste little honey with the end of the rod that was in my hand, and, 10, must die.' Alas, what multitudes of people in all ages have been damaged by forbidden honey, by which I mean temptation, delicious and attractive, but damaging and destructivei
 Eviaa of Bad Literature.
 Corrupt literature, fascinating, but deathful, comes in this category. Where one good, honest, healthful book Is read now there are hundred made up of rhe- &<,- ch al xu;* oufH fu When the boys on the cars come through with pile of publications look over the titles and notice that nine out of ten of the books are injurious. All the way from here to Chicago or New Orleans notice that objectionable books domi- nate. Taste for pure literature is poi soned by this scum of the publishing house. Every book in which sin tri umphs over virtue or in which a glamour is thrown over dissipation or which leaves you at it's last line with less re- spect for the marriage institution and less abhorrence for the paramour is a depression of your own moral character. The book bindery may be attractive and the plot dramatic and startling and the style of writing sweet as the honey that Jonathan took up with his rod, but your best interests forbid it, your moral safe- ty forbids it, your God forbids it, and cue taste of it may lead to such bad re- suits that you may have to say at the close of the experiment, or at the close of misimproved lifetime, II did but taste little honey with the rod that was in my hand, and. 10, must die."
 Corrupt literature is doing more to- day for the disruption of domestic life than any other cause. Elopements, mar ital intrigues, sly correspondence, fcti- tious names given at postoffice win dows, clandestine meetings in parks and at ferry gates and in hotel parlors and oonjugal perjuries are among the ruin- ous results. When woman, young or old, gets her head thoroughly stuffed