Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1900-07-30


WASHINGTON. July 29.-Dr. Talmage,
Eho has been spending q few days in
St Petersburg. sends the following re-
port of Il discourse, which will be help
full to those who have an appetite for
literature and would like some rules to
guide them in the selection of books
and newspapers; text. Acts xix, 10,
-'Many of them also which used curl
Gus arts brought their books together
and 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
important results was the fact that the
citizens brought out their bad books
and in a public place made a bonfire
of them. I see the people coming out
with their arms full of Ephesian liter
allure and tossing it into the flames. 1
hear an economist who is standing by
saying: stop this waste! Here are
$500 worth of books. Do you pro-
pose to burn them all up? If you don't
want to read them yourselves, sell
them and let somebody else read
them" NO" said the people; eff 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 q
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 Il great bonfire of bad
books and newspapers. We have
enough fuel to make a 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 overlapping 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
n pulpit has q responsible position, but
I do not think it is as responsible as
the position of an editor or a publisher.
At what distant point Of time, at what
far out cycle of eternity, will cease the
influence of Henry j. Raymond or 4
Horace Greeley or a James Gordon
Bennett or Watson Webb or an Eras-
tus Brooks or q Thomas Kinsella? Take
the Overwhelming statistics Of the cir
culation of the daily and weekly news
papers and then cipher, if you can, how
far up and how far down and how far
out reach the influences of the Ameri-
can printing press.
Purified Literature.
What is to be the issue of all this? l
believe the Lord intends the printing
press to be the chief means for the
worlds rescue and evangeliZatiOn, and
1 think that the great last battle Of the
world will rot be fought with swords
and guns, but with types and presses,
a purified and gospel literature tri-
umphing over. trampling down and
crushing out forever that which is de-
PRAYED. The only way to overcome
unclean literature is by scattering
abroad that which is healthful May
God speed the cylinders of an honest,
intelligent. aggressive Christian print
ing press!
1 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 unclean literature. This last has it's
victims 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 hos
pitfalls and in the graves, while their
souls are being tossed over into lost
eternity, an avalanche Of horror and
deSpairi The London plague was
nothing to it. That counted it's 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 putrefaction which have been
gathered up in bad books and news
papers in the last 20 years.
Now, it is amid such circumstances
that 1 put a question of overmastering
Importance to you and your families.
What books and newspapers shall we
read? You see 1 group them together.
A newspaper is only a book in a swift
er and more portable shape, and the
same rules which will apply to book
reading will apply to newspaper read
ing. What shall we read? Shall our
minds be the receptacle of everything
that an author 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 filed with pollution and
shame? Shall we mire in impurity
and chase fantastic ll-O'the-wisps
across the swamps when we might
H. of