The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1900-08-04

80 49,
those abroad who like TO loan TO your
son or daughter q bad booki Every
where. everywhere, an unelean litera.
tude. | charge upon It the destruction
Of 1000 immortal souls, and l bid you
wake up to the magnitude Of lhe evil
I charge you in the first place 10
stand aloof from all books that give
false pictures of life. Life is neither
q tragedy nor a farce. Mea are not
all either knaves OF heroes. Women
are neither angels nor furies. And yet
If you depended upon much of the lit
erature OF the day you would get the
idea that life, instead OF being some
thing earnest, something practical, is
q ftful and fantastic and extrava.
CANT thing, How poorly prepared are
that young mAn and woman for the
duties OF to-day who spent last night
wading through brilliant passages de.
scriptive Of magnificent knAvery and
wickedness! The mar will be looking
all day long for his heroine in the Of
fee, by the forge, In the factory, in
the counting room. and he will not
find her, and he will be dissatisfied.
A man who gives himself up TO the in
discriminate reading Of novels will be
~neryeless, inane and a nuisance. He
will be fl neither for the store, nor
the shop nor the field. A woman who
gives herself up to the indiscriminate
reading Of novels will be untitled for
the duties Cd wife, mother, sister,
daughter. There she L. hair dishev-
eled- countenance vacant, cheeks pale,
hands trembling. bursting into tears
at midnight over the fate of some I'M
fortunate lover; in the daytime, when
she ought to be busy, staring by the
half hour at nothing biting her fin
ger nails into the quick. The carpet
that was plain before will be palmer
after having wandered through a TO
nance all night long in tessellated
halls Of castles. And your industrious
than ever. now that you have walked
in the romance through parks with
plumed princesses or lounged in the
arbor with the polished desperate.
Oh, these confirmed novel readersl
They are untitled for this life, which
is a tremendous discipline. They
know not how to go through the fur
naces Of trial through which they
must pass, and they are untitled for
q world where everything we gain we
achieve by hard and long continued
work.
Again, ] charge you to stand Of
from all those books which corrupt
the Imagination and infame the pas.
sions. / do not refer now to that
kind OF book which the villain has
under his coas waiting for the school
to get out. and .htn. looking both
ways to see that there Is no police.
man around the block, offers tn book
10 your son on L.s way home. do
moi speak of hat kind of literature,
but that which eyades the law and
comes out in polished style, and with
acute plot sounds the tocsin that
ous up all the baser passions Of
the soul. To-day, under the n~ostriis
of the people, there is a fetid, reek-
ing. unwashed literature, enough TO
poison all the fountains of public vir-
tue and smite your sons and daugh-
ters as with the wing of q destroying
angel, and 1t Is time that the minis
tiers Of the Gospel blew the trumpet
and rallied the forces of righteous
ness, all armed TO this great battle
against a depraved literature.
Again, abstain from those books
which are spologetie Of crime. 1t is
a sad thing that some of the best and
most beautiful bookbindery and some
OF the finest rhetoric have been
brought 10 make sin attractive. Vice
is q horrible thing anyhow. Il is
born in shame, and II dies bowling
in the darkness. In this world II IL
scourged with a whip of scorpions,
but afterward the thunders Of Gods
wrath pursue It across . boundless
desert, beating 1t with ruin and woe.
When you come to paint carnality.
do not paint it as looking from behind
embroidered curtains or through lat
tice Of royal seragho, but n writhing
in the agonies Of q city hospital.
Cursed be the books that try to make
impurities decent and crime attractive
and hypocrisy nobel Cursed be the
books that swarm with libertinss and
despsradoes, who make the brain Of
the young people whirl with vii
lainyl Ye authors who write them,
ye publishers who print them, 70
booksellers who distribute them, shall
be cut to pieces, II not by an aroused
community, then At last by the hail
of Divine vengeance, which shall sweep
TO the lowest pit Of perdition all ye
murderers Of souls. i tell you,
though you may escape in this world,
you will be ground at last under the
hoof Of eternal calamities, and you
will be chained 10 the rock, and you
will have the ~vultures Of despair
clawing at your soul, and those whom
you have destroyed will come around
to torment you, and TO pour hotter
Goals Of fury upon your head, and re-
joice eternally In the cutlery OF your
pain, and the howl of your damna-
tion. God shall wound the hairy
scalp Of him that goeth on in his
trespasses."
The clock strikes midnight. A fair
form bends over a "a The
avau Zach ara IT.. kraath IL ouioL
and irregular. Occasionally the color
daShes 10 the cheek and hen dies out.
The hands tremble as though 4 guar
dian spirit were trying TO shake the
deadly book out Of the grasp. Hot
tears fall. She laughs with = shrill
voice that drops dead at its own
sound. The sweat on her brow is the
spray dashed up from the river OF
death. The clock strikes four. and
the rosy dawn soon after begins to
look through the lattice upon the
pale form that looks like q detained
Epectsr Of the night. Soon in a mad
, house she will mistake her ringletS
for curling serpents and thrust her
white hand through the bars Of the
prison and smite her head, rubbing
II back as though to push the scalp
from the skull, shrieking: MY
brain! My braini" Oh. stand of
from thatl Why will you go sound.
ing your way amid the reefs when
there is such a vast ocean In which
you may voyage, all sail set2
|. Much Of the impure pictorial liter.
ature Is most tremendous for ruin
, There is no one who can like good
, pictures better than ! do. The quick.