The Grenada sentinel. [volume] (Grenada, Miss.) 1868-1955, 1900-08-04
ON WHAT TO READ.
Talmage, the Noted Divine, Gives
Some Timely Suggestions.
The Greatest Blessing Of n Nation 10
an Elevated L~fteratureB IA
Greatest Curse, an linz
pure Literature.
TCopyright, 1900, by Louis Klopsch.l
Washington,

Copyright. 1900. by Louis Klopsch.'
Washington.
DR.. Talmage, who has been spending
a few DAYS in st. Petersburg, sends
the following report of a discourse
which will be helpful to those who
have an appetite for literature ant
would like some rules to guide them
in the selection of books and newspa-
pers: Text, Acts 1919: MANY OF
them also which used curious arts
brought their books together and
burned them before all men, and they
counted the price of them and found 1t
$4,000 pieces of silver"
Paul had been stirring up Ephesus
with some lively sermons o 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 a bonfire
of them. 1 see the people coming out
with their arms full of Ephesian lit
e~rature and tossing it into the flames.
/ hear an economist who is standing by
saying: "Stop this waste. Here are
S 1900 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 thems' mo"
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 a 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 a 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 we'll 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 a pulpit, has a responsible position,
but ] do not think 1t is as responsible
as the position of an editor or a pub
Usher. At what distant point of time,
at what far-out cycle of eternity, will
cease the influence of a Henry j. Ray
mond, or a Horace Greeley, or a James
} Gordon Bennett, or a Watson Webb
or an Erastus Brooks, or a Thomas
Kinsella? Take the overwhelming sta
y l.u - A. o,rn,,1ottnr nf tho daily
and weekly newspapers and ther
| cipher if you can how far up and how
!, far down and how far out reach thu
u influences of the American printing
press.
Z What is to be the issue of all this?
, believe the Lord intends the printing
I press to be the chief means for tn
worlds rescue and evangelization, ant
] think that the great last battle o
the world will not be fought will
Z swords and guns, but with types AM
presses, a purified and Gospel ltera
!, ture triumphing over, trampling dow
q and crushing out forever that whicl
| is d~epraved. The only way to overcom
Il unclean literature is by scatterin
abroad that which is healthful. Ma
God speed the cylinders of an homes
& intelligent, aggressive, Christian ptn'
ing press.
1 have to tell you that the creates
u blessing that ever came to the nation
g is that of an elevated literature, and tn
ir greatest scourge has been that of III
d clean literature. This last has its vi
Tins in all occupations and depar
:, ments. 1t has helped to fill insaI
4. asylums and pe%nitentiaries and aim
err houses and dens of shame. The bodi,
TO of this infection lie in the hospitals ar
in the graves, while their souls are b
. ing tossed over into a lost eternity, 8
avalanche of horror and despair! II
London plague was nothing to it.. TIL
40 counted it's victims by thousands, b
" this modern pest has already shovel
: its millions into the charnel house
g the morally dead. The longest ri
he train that ever ran over the tracks W
II, not long enough or large enough
Id carry the beastliness and the pitrefs
ton which have been gathered
in bad books and newspapers in I
Ice last 20 years.
n Now, it is amid such circumstanc
to that / put a question of overmasteri
Importance to you and your famili
/. What books and newspapers shall
read? You see 1 group them togeth
I'VE A newspaper is only a book in a swift
ore and more portable shape, and the sal
are rules which will apply to book readi
tlv will apply to newspaper reading. WI
shall we read? Shall our minds be
no receptacle of everything that an
ice thor has a mind to write? Shall tn,
ITO be no distinction between the tree
ID life and the tree of death? Shall
stoop down and drink out of
o' trough which the wickedness of n
ac- has filed with pollution and shan
re- Shall we mire in impurity and ch
fantastic will-o'the-wisps across
-ou swamps, when we might walk in
I'm blooming gardens of God? Oh,
MY For the sake of our present and ev
ore lasting welfare we must make an in
to ligent and Christian choice.