The Greenville times., 1900-08-04
ON WHAT TO READ.
Talmage, the Noted Divine, Gives
Some Timely Suggestions.
The Greatest Blessing of n Nation Is
an Elevated Literaturej Its
Greatest Curse, an Im-
pure Literature.

copyright. 1900. by Louis Klopschl
Washington,
DR.. Talmage, who has been spending
a few days in St. Petersburg, send,
the following report of a discourse
which will be helpful to those who
have an appetite for literature and
would like some rules to guide then
in the selection of books and newspa'
pers: Text, Acts 1919: MANY OF
| them also which used curious arts
burned them before all men, and they
counted the price of them and found it
$4,000 pieces of silver"
Paul had been stirring up Ephesus
with some lively sermons about the
sins of that place. Among the more i'm
portant results was the fact that the
citizens brought out their bad books
and in a public place made bonfire
of them. / see the people coming out
with their arms full of Ephesian lit
erature and tossing it into the flames.
/ hear an economist who Is standing by
saying: "Stop this waste. Here are
$500 worth of books. Do you propose
to burn them all up? Ifyou don't want
to read them yourselves, sell them and
let somebody else read them "No,"
said the people; 'if these books are
not good for us, they are not good for
anybody else, and we shall stand and
watch until the last leaf has burned
to ashes. They have done us world
of harm, and they shall never do others
harm" Hear the flames crackle and
roar!
Well, my friends, one of the wants of
the cities is great bonfire of bad
books and newspapers. We have
enough fuel to make blaze 200 feet
high. Many of the publishing houses
would do well to throw into the blaze
their entire stock of goods. Bring
forth the insufferable trash and put it
into the fire and let it be known in the
presence of God and angels and men
that you are going to rid your homes
of the overtopping and underlying
curse of profigate literature.
The printing press is the mightiest
agency on earth for good and for evil.
The minister of the Gospel, standing
in pulpit, has a responsible position.
but l do not think it is as responsible
as the position of an editor or pub
Usher. At what distant point of time,
at what far-out cycle of eternity, will
cease the influence of Henry ]. Ray.
mond, or Horace Greeley, or James
Gordon Bennett. or a Watson Webb,
or an Erastus Brooks, or a Thomas
Take the overwhelming sta.
tistics of the circulation of the daily
and weekly newspapers and then
cipher if you can how far up and how
far down and how far out reach the
influences of the American printing
press.
What is to be the issue of all this? !
believe the Lord intends the printing
press to be the chief means for the
worlds rescue and evangelization, and
/ think that the great last battle of
the world will not be fought with
swords and guns, but with types and
presses, purified and Gospel litera-
ture triumphing over, trampling down
md crushing out forever that which
is depraved. The only way to overcome
literature is by scattering
abroad that which is healthful. May
God speed the cylinders of an honest, |
intelligent, aggressive, Christian print |
ing press.
l have to tell you that the greatest |
blessing that ever came to the nations |
is that of an elevated literature and the |
greatest scourge has been that of un-
clean literature. This last has its vic |
Tins in all occupations and depart
ments. 1t has helped to fill insane
asylums and penitentiaries and aims
houses and dens of shame. The bodies |
of this infection lie in the hospitals and |
in the graves, while their souls are be-
ing tossed over into lost eternity, an
avalanche of horror and despair! The
London plague was nothing to it. That
counted its victims by thousands, but
this modern pest has already shoveled
It's millions into the charnel house of
the morally dead. The longest rail
train that ever ran over the tracks was
not long enough or large enough to
carry the beastliness and the putrefac-
ton which have been gathered up
In bad books and newspapers in the
last 20 years.
Now, it is amid such circumstances
that l put question of overmastering
to you and your families.
What books and newspapers shall we
read? You see group them together.
A newspaper is only book in swifter
and more portable shape, and the same
rules which will apply to book reading
will apply to newspaper reading. What
shall we read? Shall our minds be the
receptacle of everything that an au-
thor has a mind to write? Shall there
be no distinction between the tree of
life and the tree of death? Shall we
stoop down and drink out of the
trough which the wickedness of men
has filled with pollution and shame?
Shall we mire in impurity and chase
fantastic will-o'the-wisps across the
swamps, when we might walk in the
gardens of God? Oh, mol
For the sake of our present and ever
lasting welfare we must make an intel
ligent and Christian choice.
Standing as we do, chin deep in fic-
titious literature, the question that
young people are asking is: "Shall we
read novelist" reply: There are nov
els that are pure, good, Christian, ele-
waiting to the heart and ennobling to
the life. But still have further to say
that believe that rs out of the 100 nov
els in this day are baleful and destruc-
tive to the last degree. A pure work of
fiction is history ano poetry combined.
1t is history of things around us With
the licenses and the assumed names of
poetry. The world can never pay the
debt which it owes to such writers of
fiction as Hawthorne and Mckenzie