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THE SUNNY SOUTH ATLANTA, G^.. SATURDAY MORNING, MARCH 14, 1891.
CHAT.
iitp teen rung in by tbe belle of Time.
Some, light-hearted and care free, have since
ueumed their ‘burden of sorrow,” with som
bre robes and faltering sfeps-ycu fail to see
them. Some have had a glimpse of heaven, and
are happy all the timo.
New members are welcomed and we are en
tertained by visits from all.
£toile, the heart is thrilled to mighty deeds,
often by a name. We are glad Hermoine called
you forth.
Happy Mo'.her, kind words and good wishet
cheer many weary hours. We appreciate all
you say of us and hope to live so that when the
summer comts it may be said “she hath done
what she eouid,”
Boselle, your question set me thinking.
Ideas, like crime, cyclones and the tempera
ture, come in waves. One reads the daily
papers and is struck by the similarity of occur
rences in tar distant places.
On the cars between Madison and Ocala a
lady came to my seat and introduced heiself,
saying:
• I want to talk to you of the latest discussion
we had in our Woman’s Club.”
The argument was that women, working
cheaper than men, are driving them from their
legitimate fields and making them worthless
by supporting them in idleness. We had a
pleasant talk, and I wish you could have
heard it.
The drift of woman is not to new fields, but
where taste and ability put her. Women can
not afford tc work for less than men. There
can be but two motives to prompt such—neces
sity or the knowledge that they are not quali
fied for the place. The former is a juggernaut
that crushes thousands yearly, and my heart
aches for its victims. The latter do not realize
the injustice they do their comrades.
As to supporting men in idleness; we see
many families that would or did suffer until
the mother and girls wint to work.
The world may be drifting to the age of
Amazons, but 1 cannot think so. Tnere are as
many good men now as when th9 Crusaaeis
left home and love for the holy cause. These
days of peace do not call forth the qualities
that show the hero, but every day heroes and
heroines are offering self upon shrines we can
not see.
“There are tricks in all trades,” I heard
some one say. Let there be none in yours, dear.
Honor above all else.
To the stars, and without fear of malice or
slander, the armor of Truth wi.l ward oi the
poisoned darts.be they ever so skilfully thrown.
Affectionately,
Mother Hcbbare.
OLD FRIENDS RETURN.
Hear Hocsehollers: The dear Scksy South
has once more found its way to my home after
an absence of years. My eyes ran rapidly over
the Housthold eoiumns to see if the “ante wri
ters occupy its space and, sure enough, I find
some oi my old familiar ir.c-nds in the.r ac
customed place.
Musa Dunn gives us a breezy and really en
joyable letter. She convinces us that pearls of
wit drop from the soft red lips, or rather are
thrown off the point of the pen by lovely
digits. Let us have more refreshing letters
like vour last, Musa. 1 also find amoug those
whom 1 knew in iormer days Leal Itienner, in
foims us that she has been absent lor two
years. I ieel quite sure that I voice the senti
ment of tue Household when I insist that she
do not stay away two years again. I look in
vain ior oth’eis, some oi whose names I have
forgotten. Where are they? What changes
have taken place since I last knocked at tue
door. Ho some of them sleep under the grten
turf in some quiet city of the dead?.
Happy Mother is new to me but iS none the
less welcome. I greatly admire her spirit. 1
imagine she is a young mother and a happy
Christian. 1 feel a greater interest in the Lone
FUr btate since readiBg her letter.
For fear I shall now share the same fate that
you coneigued me to when I last knocked I will
say no more, though my heart hasbeenstrange-
ly thrilled bv meeting "my old friends. Just
let mein this' time and, well 1 may come again.
Lose Wanderer.
WHO WILL AN8WERT
This is time to take a reckoning. Where are
we and whither are we drifting? Over and again
have I asked myself these questions. The new
year is an open book to all, wherein we must
write—the good and had, the hope and disap
pointments of each day.
May every one be able to record each day
some good and generous deed. Forgive and
forget old and past wounds. Learn to be more
thoughtful efour loved ones and scatter roses
■Jong their pathway.
Often by disappointment and flushes of tem
per do we thrust a thoru in the heart of some
ioved one.
Herinione, I, too, sometimes take a retro
spective view of thiugs. and sigh for past hap
piness that 1 fear me will never be mine save
in memory.
“You may break, you may shatter the vase, if
you will,
Hut the scent of the roses will hang round it
still."
Night Blooming Cereus, I enjoyed your letter
so much
lia Jones, I thiuk I can guess who you are. I
am closely akin to the three pretty Southern
children whose- piclurts bang on your wall.
1 want to lay to Mother llubbaru and all the
Household, that 1 am a stranger and would like
to have a place in your merry circle. It has
ever been a pleasure to me to peruse the House
hold.
Who will welcome Koselle?
you in my mind—a sweet-faced Christian, hut I
thought you were very young and quite deli
cate.
and true. Oh, how little we, that we have
health and strength, appreciate our blessings.
Earnest Willie reminds one of a friend who was
shot in the late war. He was a middle aged
man when I knew him, and he had been almost
helpless since a boy of eighteen. .
He was a Presbyterian minister and preacnea
sitting. I think he was the most cheerful, con
tented person I ever met and as true a Chris
tian as one could be. I used to think I would
give the world if I could be as good as he was.
God could not spare him too long, so he sent
his angels to bear him home, where there is no
more pain or sorrow.
Mother Hubbard, let me tell you my idea o
death—our last s'etp. 1 believe our souls sleep
aud our minds go back over the life^ we have
lived, and as we live (in our minds) the 5ears
over again we have the power to .read the
minds of others. We see why cur friends did
certain things that seemed strange to us wniie
living and perhaps made us love them less, but
which is all explained when we read their
thoughts through this wonderful power that.
God gives us after death. I don’t know that I
can explain it so you can quite understand me,
but just imagine bow sweet it would be to
know all the kindness, the love and good
wishes that lie in the heart of our friends.
Then, if some of them are untrue we will know
when we reach tne heavenly shore why we see
them not, and with everything made clear we
will then know God was just.
Sow mv husband is a very quiet man aDd
doesn’t o*ften express himself. I snow he loves
me; but I am veiy affectionate in my ways, and
sometives would give oh, to much, if he would
show his love more. Just thin* what an inde
scribable pleasure for me to read his mind and
comprehend all his thoughts about me. Is it
not strange that one will be that way? 1 some
times wonder at myself for being 60 foolish as
to want him to express what I know and feel
sure of; but such is a woman’s heart. I would
not have him know 1 feel like thiE, ior it would
pain him.
For the wicked—I don’t think any other pun
ishment could be so great as to make them feel
the pain and sorrow they have caused others;
to let them look into the mind and thoughts of
those they have injured and see the full extent
of their crimes. Oh, what a terrible punish
ment to have them realize all the sorrow caused
by their deeds :
Remember this is only my idea of future
punishment ani explanation of life’s mis-
takes. ,
You know, some disbelievers have said it
would take thousands of years to judge the
world; but if judgment comes tc us in our
loDg, long sleep, there will be nothing to do on
the last great day, except for God to pronounce
sent nee and send us to our future home.
Christ speaks of death as s.eep; and in one
place we read of David as “sleeping yet.”
I want to ask you all if any of you can tell me
the author of a'poem called “Judgment of Sol
omon.” I have the poem in my scrap book,
but don’t know who wrote it.
Did you ever read many poems from Mollie
E. Moore? I have a few, one “We Dream,” and
another “Slander,” I think are the best I ever
read of hers.
She lived near us when I w°s a child. I have
a little painting she gave my husband. His
mother gave it o me after I was married.
Aunt Prudence, why don’t 3ou write. Oh! I
do so love to read all the lettei6 May God
bless you all. And you, dear Mother, may
heaven's choicest blessings rest upon you.
I have not received the last two Sunny
Sourns yet, hut will this week, and I’m going
to hurry through with my work so I can feast
on them when they come. I know the editor
must be a good man or he ?ould not conduct
such a good paper. Good-bye to all, may God
be with you and fill your hearts with good will
toward*: every v ne. f
Happy Mothef..
WHAT’S IN A NAME!
Dear Mother Hcblard: “There is nothing
in a name, ’ I hav*. heard repeated o’er and
o'er. But I say there is something in a name.
Often have I seen men, and women too, stirred
into new life or daring deeds at the mention of
a name. So with myself. In the Household
chats in the Sunny south of December Oth,
2b9J, I saw a name which thrills my whole
ueing every time I see it. It is the name
“Hermione.” I quote from her letter—“Ah!
there are moments—we cannot tell why—but
an aching woe fills the soul; each thought is a
turbulent ocean whose waves threaten to over
whelm us. tach hope bears with it a burden,
and we invoke the river of teais to relieve our
broken spirit.”
Such bas been my existence for fifteen long
years- but what has that to do with a name.
Hermione! how sweet that name sounds to me!
It is the name of oLe I love with my whole
soul, and why? 30U ask Have patience,
Mother Hublard, I will tell 30U some other
time. I know the Hermione who wrote that
letter was not my Heimioue. but when 1 see or
hear that name mentioned, I cannot help
ihmkiDg of the past, with a wish for the fut ire.
I loved her then—1 love her still—and when
my list hour comes my prayer wouid be that
I might see her once more.
“True love can ne’er forget.”
How true! Forget!! Impossible!!! Ah! bow
well do 1 remember her golden curls,her laugh
ing eyes, her tiny arms around my neck, ner
thoughtfulness, in her childlike way, of tuy
every comfort. Am I never to see her again,
and clasp l er to my heart? God grant 1 may
be permitted to have her with me again, never
mcie to be parted until we part to meet up
there!
Mother Hubbard, Hcuseho ders, one and all
help me to find and restore to me my Her
m.one! Etoile.
Dear Mot». ep. Hurraed: I have been very
busy sewing for the last three weeks and my
heart asked to write to the Household, but I
kucw I must li-ish my sewing first. Oh, how
many little gurnients it takfs to clothe my lit
tle family. I tnina every time 1 hire sewi:;g
done that I will ii(;ver hire sly more, fo
jnosia'Wuy? have half o) it to do over again
Tuis is the first I've hired uoue in several
years.
Moiher Huhbur i. I dreamed of seeing you
last night, aud I thought we talked for hours
and oh my heart was fall of love for you,
cause I thought you were just what I pictured
“Rain, rain, go away and come another day.”
Was ever one so tired of constantly recurring
showers, of mud and slush? The sunshine and
showers vie with e«ch other in making belief
it’s April instead of January and February.
And this is the Sabbath, this misty, moisty
morning. I will while away the rainy day with
my new Sunny South. What a batch of good
letters, these of Mother Hubbard, Maud Muller,
Cornflower and Ellen Starwood. All touch on
favorite novels, and favorite authors. A most
congenial topic to me.
Bulwer is a brilliant favorite. I found Zanoni
most fascinating. A friend recommends My
Novel as something truly good. George Eliot
is always instructive and fascinating. The Mill
on the Floss, haunts me persistently. Romola
is good, and if Shakespeare had written a novel
it would surely have been Middle March. Dor
othea Brook is the most perfect conception of a
novelist s mind. I read The Lifted Veilacu
rious, weird story of Eliot’s, recently. Most of
this writers, works contain some prosy parts.
But not so with Dickens. The driest line of
his, is far from dry to me. ExceptiDg, Pick
wick Papers,which was never suited to my taste.
I know I quite lay myself open to criticism here
but when I want humor let it be in a more del
icate vein. I have lived through the lives of
most of Dickens' characters. David Copperiield
is deservedly a general favorite of hii works,
but 1 have a fondness for Bleak House, a tender
love for Old Curiosity Shop and sympathy and
affection for little Paul in Domney and Son.
Very recently I have read the Tale of Two
Cities a genuine treat, a masterly tale. Some
where 1 have read that Rider Haggard consid
ers the best novel he ever read. This greatly
increases my admiration of Haggard. His style
as a writer is too exaggerated to suit me. Mrs
Rives Chauler is scarcely more to my taste.
Give me Mrs. Whitney for delicacy of touch and
expression. Her Ascutney Street is peculiarly
refreshing in this time of trashy. flashy novels.
Just last week I have read Romana. It were
worth a lifetime to perpetuate one s name as
Mrs Jackson has herein this work. Truly this
is tne American novel* After reading it I have
& greater interest in the much abused red man,
a broader sympathy for the Catbolies, a deeper
conception of ife and its environments We
have all read the tender poems of H. H., with
softened hearts and moistened eyes now read
her masterpiece, Romana.
Ruth Alexander in making out the list of
books for your S. S. Library, be sure to head it
with Ben Hud. Then go no further until you
get John B. Allen.s catalogue of books. You
will find bis books wonderfully cheap, as good
as the best and you will receive fair dealing,
always. I have tried him. In speaking of the
books you read when a child, you mention The
Lamplighter. Miss Maria Cummin* is the
author. This was one of my mother’s books
when she was a young lady, and thfs and
Widow Bedott’s Papers were a constant joy to
my youthful mind. The Lam plighter is newly
issued and to the front again. The first full •
pledged novell ever read was 8t. Elmo. And
until now this book pressei a fascination for
me beyond almost all novels. I have read and
reread it, and have never grown tired. Mrs,
Wilson’s style is slightly overdrawn and there s
a similarity in most of her w< rks. Still my
heart turns to St. Elmo. Lately I sat myself to
the task of reading and destroying old letters;
Many packages had collected in my trunk-
correspondence covering a number of years.
’Twae with a feeling of sadness that I consigned
them to the flames.
Among these letters were several from the
word Sainted Veritas, and a number bearing
the cnaracteristic banc write of Yellow Jase-
mine, these as spicy and fragrant as her lovely
namesake.
“Quite recently I paid a visit to R. V. R. There
afco met by twin sisters. Both are dead friends
of mine, aiid the visit was fraught with pleas
ure, This stme trip bore me past the home of
All Lean. I fear she, like R. V. R., has allowed
other publications to usurp the place of the
dear old S. S. But I muen’t say much. I am in
arrears. *
Happy Mother, I’*e tried to perpetrate your
name but failed. 1 have friends and relatives
in your county, use to have in your town but I
can’t recognize you. Possibly we are unknown
to each other, yet much you say finds an an
swering echo in ray heart.
Some one, was it the much gifted Quien Sabe?
use to protest a ai ust and airing our love and
admiration for eash other in this Household
department. A cruel mandate. A few day’s
ago, in the. heart of the city. I saw two people
conversing. The one a tali fair lady, the other
a professional man of the world, one grown gray
and skillful in service. 4 1 liked you when first
I met you ” “Then we should tell eacn other
that we love,” I heard him say. My heart went
out to this stern looking man who had stood
beside suil'eriug, and ministered to paiu all his
l ie, and who still had a warm heart and words
oi cheer. Yes love is the keynote of our lives,
the gr* aiest essential to happiness, the ma^ic
beautified Then tell us tb«xt you love us;
don’t deyend entirely on finding this out.
Let words and work go together.
Mother Hubbard, accept thanks for yonr
practical suggestions in reference to the shoul
der braces. Also lo those sisters who remem-
bertd my wishes f.>r the pickle recipe I thank
you I am n r >t ungrateful, because so long
silent. Many duties and pleasures press upon
me but I a ways find time to love my frien’s
and good literature Who of you shares iny
fondness for Jean Iugelow. lier poems sing
t*eime ves uVi my biain end hear; aline.
Good bye friends, good night.
Charm ion.
If you are irelpncholy or down with the
tlu3« you need Simmons Live; R3gUat<:r.
TALMAGE’S SERMON.
—« aGuS, aufico o.—me pagae
of pernicious literature formed the sub
ject of Dr. Talmage’s sermon today,
which was the third of the series he is
preaching on the “Ten Plagues of the
Cities.” The Brooklyn Academy of
Mnsic was filled in the morning by a
dense crowd eager to hear it, and at
night at The Christian Ilerald service,
in the New York Academy of Music,
the doors had to be closed long before
tile hour of service, there being no
space available within the building for
more hearers. So large is the number
of those every week disappointed of
gaining admission that the project of
hiring the Madison Square Garden has
again been revived. One citizen has
offered to pay all the expenses if the
Garden can be secured and Dr. Tal-
mage can be induced to preach in it.
The text of the preacher's discourse
was taken from Ex. viii, (5, 7: “And
the frogs came up and covered the
land of Egypt. And the magicians
did so with their enchantments, and
brought up frogs upon the land of
Egypt.”
There is almost a universal aversion
to frogs, and yet with the Egyptian
they were honored, they were sacred,
and they were objects of worship while
alive, and after death they were em
balmed, and today their remains may
be found among the sepulchers of
Thebes. These creatures, so attractive
once to tlie Egyptians, at divine be
hest became obnoxious and loathsome,
and they went croaking and hopping
and leaping into the palace of the king,
and into the bread trays and the couches
of the people, and even the ovens,
which now are uplifted above the earth
and on the side of the chimneys, but
then were small holes in the earth
with sunken pottery, were filled with
frogs when the housekeepers came to
look at them. If a man sat down to
eat, a frog alighted on his plate. If he
attempted to put on a shoe it was pre
occupied by a frog. If he attempted
to put his head upon a pillow it had
been taken possession of by a frog.
Frogs high and low and everywhere;
loathsome frogs, slimy frogs, besieging
frogs, innumerable frogs, great plague
of frogs. What made the matter
worse the magicians said there was no
miracle in this, and they could by
sleight of hand produce the same thing,
and they seemed to succeed, for by
sleight of hand wonders may be
wrought. After Moses had thrown
down his staff ajftd by miracle it be
came a serpent, add then he took hold
of it and by miracle it again became a
stall, the serpent charmers imitated
the same thing, and knowing that
there were serpents in Egypt which by
a peculiar pressure on the neck would
become as rigid as a stick of wood,
they seemed to change the serpent into
the staff, and then throwing it down
the staff became the serpent. So like
wise these magicians tried to imitate
the plague of frogs, and perhaps by
smell of food attracting a great number
of them to a certain point, or by shirk
ing them out from a hidden place, the
magicians sometimes seemed to ac
complish the same miracle. While these
magicians made the plague worse, none
of them tried to make it better. “Frogs
came up and covered the land of
Egypt, and the magicians did so with
their enchantment, and brought up
frogs upon the land of Egypt.”
A MODERN PLAGUE.
Now that plague of frogs has coine
back upon the earth. It is abroad to
day. It is smiting this nation. It
comes in the shape of corrupt litera
ture. These frogs hop into the store,
the shop, the office, the banking house,
the factory, into the home, into the
cellar, into the garret, on the drawing
room table, on the shelf of the library.
While the lad is reading the bad book
the teacher's face is turned the other
way. One of these frogs hops upon
the page. While the young woman is
reading the forbidden novelette after
retiring at night, reading by gaslight,
one of these frogs leaps upon the page.
Indeed, they have hopped upon the
news stands of the country, aud the
mails at the postoffice shake out in the
letter trough hundreds of them. The
plague has taken at different times
possession of tliis country. It is one of
the most loathsome, one of the most
frightful, one of the most ghastly of
the ten plagues of our modern cities.
There is a vast number of books and
newsjjapers printed and published
which ought never to see the light.
They are filled with a pestilence that
makes the land swelter with a moral
epidemic. Tiie greatest blessing that
ever came to this nation is that of an
elevated literature, and the greatest
scourge has been that of uneleau liter
ature. Tliis last has its victims in all
occupations and departments. It has
helped to fill insane asylums and peni
tentiaries and almshouses and dens o f
shame. The bodies of tliis infection
lie in the hospitals and in the graves,
while their souls are being tossed over
into a lost eternity, an avalanche of
horror and despair. The London
plague was nothing to it. That count
ed its victims by thousands, but this
modern pest has already shoveled its
millions into the charnel house of the
morally dead. The longest rail train
that ever ran over the Erie or Hudson
tracks was not long enough r.or large
enough to carry the beastliness and the
putrefaction which have been gathered
up in bad boo Its and newspapers of
this land in the last twenty years. The
literature of a nation decides the fate
of a nation. Good books, good morals.
Bail books, bad morals.
I begin with the lowest of all the lit
erature. that which does not even pre
tend to be respectable—from cover to
cover a blotch of leprosy. There are
many whose entire business it is to dis
pose of that kind of literature. They
display ic before the schoolboy on his
way home. They get the catalogues
of schools and colleges, take the names
and postofiice addresses and send their
advertisements, mid their circulars, aud
tnetr pampas, ana tneir books to
every one of them.
sendIJQ out bad books.
In the possession of these dealers in
bad literature were found nine hun
dred thousand names and postoffice
addresses, to whom it was thought it
might be profitable to send these cor
rupt things. In the year 1873 there
were one hundred and sixty-five estab
lishments engaged in publishing cheap,
corrupt literature. From one publish
ing house there went out twenty differ
ent styles of corrupt books. Although
over thirty tons of vile literature have
been destroyed by the Society for the
Suppression of Vice, still there is
enough of it left in this country to
bring down upon us the thunderbolts
of an incensed God.
In the year 1868 the evil had become
so great in this country that the con
gress of the United States passed a law
forbidding the transmission of bad lit
erature through the United States
mails; but there were large loops in
that law through which criminals might
crawl out, and the law was a dead fail-
ure—that law of 1S68. But in 1873 an
other law was passed by the congress
of the United States against the trans
mission of corrupt literature through
the mails—a grand law, a potent law,
a Christian law—and under that law
multitudes of these scoundrels have
been arrested, their property confis
cated and they themselves thrown into
the penitentiaries, where they belonged.
HOW CAN IT BE FOUGHT?
Now. mv friends, how are we to war
against tliis corrupt literature, and how
are the frogs of this Egyptian plague to
be slain? First of all. by the prompt
and inexorable execution of the law.
Let all good postmasters and United
States district attorneys aud detectives
and reformers concert in their action to
stop this plague. When Sir Rowland
Hill spent his life in trying to secure
cheap postage, not only for England
but for al 1 the world, and to open the
blessings of the postoffice to all honest
business and to all messages of chanty
and kindness and affection, for all
healthful intercommunication, he did
not mean to make vice easy or to fill
the mail bagsof the United States with
the scabs of such a leprosy.
It ought not to be in the power of
every bad man who can raise a one
cent stamp for a circular, or a two cent
stamp for a letter, to blast a man or
destroy a home. The postal service of
this country must be clean, and we
must all understand that the swift ret
ributions of the United States govern
ment hover over every violation of the
letter box.
There are thousands of men and
women in this country, some for per
sonal gain, some tlirough innate de
pravity, some Through a spirit of re
venge, who wish to use this great
avenue of convenience and intelli
gence for purposes revengeful, sala
cious and diabolic. Wake up the law.
Wake up all its penalties. Let every
court room on this subject be a Sinai
thunderous and aflame. Let the eon
vieted offenders be sent ior the full
term to Sing Sing or Harrisburg.
I am not talking about what cannot
be done. 1 am talking now about
what is being done. A great many of
tbe priutinexcesses that gave tliem-
selYes enti jTjL: the publication of vile
literature stopped or have
-g-wro rh L vG less OtZooxious.
What has tirown off, what has kept
off the rail Wains of this country for
some time b: ®k nearly all the leprous
periodicals? Those of us who have
been ou the rail trains have noticed a
great change in the last few mouths
and the last year or two. Why have
nearly all those vile periodicals been
kept off the rail trains for some time
back? Who effected it? These so
cieties for the purification of railroad
literature gave warning to the publish
ers and warning to railroad companies
and warning to conductors and warn
ing to newsboys to keep the infernal
stuff off the trains.
PURIFYING THE NEWS STAND'S.
Many of the cities have successfully
prohibited the most of that literature
even from going on the news stands.
Terror has seized upon the publishers
and dealers in impure literature, from
the fact that over a thousand arrests
have been made, and the aggregate
time for which the convicted have been
sentenced to tiie prison is over one hun
dred and ninety years, and from the
fact that about two million of their cir
culars have been destroyed, and the
business is not as profitable as it used
to be.
llow have so many of the news stands
of our great cities been purified ? How
has so much of this iniquity been
balked? By moral suasion? Oh, no.
You might as well go into a jungle of
the East Indies and pat a cobra on
the neck, and with profound argument
try to persuade it that it is morally
wrong to bite and to sting and to poi
son anything. The only answer to
your argument wouid be an uplifted
head and a hiss, and a sL_p, reeking
tooth stuck into your arteries. The
only argument for . cobra is a shotgun,
and the only argument for these deal
ers in impure literature is the clutch of
the police and bean soup in the peni
tentiary. Tl.o law! The law! I in
voke to consummate the work so grand
ly begun!
Another way in which we are to drive
back tliis plague of Egyptian frogs is
by tilling the minds of our young people
with a healthful literature. I do not
mean to say that all the books and
newspapers in our families ought to be
religious books aud newspapers, or that
every song ought to be sung to the tune
of “Old Hundred.” I have no sympa
thy with the attempt to make the
young old. I would rather join in a
crusade to keep the young young. Boy
hood and girlhood must not be ab
breviated. ^ut there are good books,
good histories, good biographies, good
works of fiction, good books of all styles
with which we are to fill the minds of
the young, so that there will be no more
room for the useless and vicious than
there is room for the chaff in a bushel
measure which is already filled with
Michigan wheat.
RUINED BY PERNICIOUS READING.
Why are 50 per cent, of the criminals
in the jails and penitentiaries of the
United States today under twenty-one
years of aitet 1!any of them under
seventeen, under sixteen, under fifteen,
under fourteen, under thirteen. Walk
along one of ilia corridors of the Tombs
prison in New York and loott for your
selves. Bad books, bad newspapers
bewitched tk.-ia as soon as they got out
of the cradle. Beware ol all those
stories which end wrong. Beware of
all those books which make the road
that ends in perdition seem to end iu
Paradise. Do not glorify’ tiie dirk and
tbe Distol. Bo not call the desperado
brave or tiie libertine gallant. Teach
our young people that if they go down
into the swamps and marshes to watch
the jack-o’-lanterns dance on the decay
and rottenness, they will catch the ma
laria and death.
“Oh!” says some one, “I am a busi
ness man, and I have no time to exam
ine what my children read. I have no
time to inspect the books that come
into my household. ” If your children
were threatened with typhoid fever,
would you have time to go for the doc
tor? YVould yon have time to watch
the progress of the disease? Would you
have time for the funeral? In the pres
ence of iny God I warn you of the fact
that your children are threatened with
moral and spiritual typhoid, and that
unless the tiling be stopped it will be to
them funeral of body, funeral of mind,
funeral of soul. Three funerals in one
day.
My word is to this vast multitude of
young people: Do not touch, do not
borrow, do not buy a corrupt book or
a corrupt picture. A book will decide
a man’s destiny for good or for eviL
The book you read yesterday may have
decided you for time and for etemitv,
or it may be a book that may come into
your possession to-morrow.
THE POWER OF A GOOD BOOK.
A- good book—who can exaggerate
its power? Benjamin Franklin said
that his reading of Cotton Mather’s
“Essays to Do Good” in childhood
gave him holy aspirations for all the
rest, of his life. George Law declared
that a biography he read in childhood
gave him all his subsequent prosperi
ties. A clergyman, many years ago,
passing to the far west, stopped at a
hotel, lie saw a woman copying some
thing from Doddridge's “Rise and
Progress.” It seemed that she had
borrowed the book, and there were
some things she wanted especially to
remember.
The clergyman had in his sachel a
copy of Doddrige's “Rise and Prog
ress,” and so he made her a present of
it. Thirty years passed on. The
clergyman came that way. and he asked
where tiie woman was whom he had
seen long ago. They said, “She lives
yonder in that beautiful house.” He
went there and said to her, "Do you
remember me?” She said, “No, 1 do
not.” He said, “Do you remember a
man gave you Doddridge's ‘Rise and
Progress’ thirty years ago'?” “Oh,
yes; I remember. That book saved
my soul. I loaned the book to alt my
neighbors, and they read it and were
converted to God, aud we had a re
vival of religion that swept through the
whole community. We built a church
and called a pastor. You see that
spire yonder, don't you? That church
was built as the result of that book you
gave me thirty years ago.” Oh, the
power of a good book! But, alas! for
the influence of a bad book.
John Angel James, than whom Eng
land never had a holier minister, stood
in his pulpit at Birmingham and said:
Twenty-five years ago a lad loaned to
me an infamous book. He would lo:in
it only fifteen minutes and then I had
to give it back; but that book has
haunted me like a specter ever since.
I have in agony of soul, on my knees
before God. prayed that he would ob
literate (front my soul the memory of it;
but I shall carry the damage of it to
the day of my death.” The assassin of
Sir William Russell declared that he
got the inspiration for his crime by
reading what was then a new and pop
ular nuvel, “Jack Sheppard.” Homer’s
“Iliad” made Alexander the warrior.
Alexander said so. The story of Alex
ander made Julius Ctesar and Charles
XII both men of blood. Have you in
your pocket, or in your trunk, or in
your desk at business a bad book, a
bad picture, a bad pamphlet? In God's
name I warn yon to destroy it.
ANOTHER WAY.
Another xvay in wliiek we shall fight
back this corrupt literature and kill the
trogs of Egypt is by roiling over them
the Christian printing press, which shall
give plenty of healthful reading to all
adults. All these men and women are
reading men and women. What are
you reading? Abstain from all those
books which, while they had some good
things about them have also an ad
mixture of evil. You have read books
that had two elements in them—the
good and the bad. Which stuck to
you? The bad! The heart of most
people is like a sieve, which lets the
small particles of gold fall through but
keeps the great cinders. Once in a
while there is a mind like a loadstone,
which, plunged amid steel and brass
filings, gathers up the steel and repels
t.h« brass. But it is generally just the
opposite. If you attempt to pluuge
through a fence of burrs to get tine
blackberry you wiil get more burrs
than blackberries. Y'ou cannot afford
to read a bail book, however good you
are. You say, “The influence is insi
nificant.” I tell you that tiie scratch
of a pin has sometimes produced the
lock jaw.
Alas! if through curiosity, as many
do, you pry into an evil book, your
curiosity is as dangerous as that of the
man who would take a torch into a
gunpowder mill merely to see whether it
would really blow up or riot. In a me
nagerie a man put his arm through the
bars of a black leopard’s cage. The
animal s hide looked so sleek and
fright and beautiful. He just stroked
it once. Tiie monster seized him, and
he drew forth a hand torn and man
gled and bleeding. Oh, touch not evil
even with the faintest stroke! Though
it may be glossy and beautiful, touch
it not, lest you pull forth your soul
tom and bleeding under the clutch of
the black leopard. “But,” you say,
“how can I find out whether a book is
good or bad without reading it.?’’ There
is always something suspicious about a
bad book. I never knew an exception
—something suspicious in the index or
style of illustration. This venomous
reptile almost always carries a warning
rattle.
The clock strikes midnight. A fair
form bends over a romance. The eyes
flash lire. The breath is quick and
irregular. Occasionally the color dashes
to the cheek, and then dies out. The
hands tremble as though a guardian
spirit were trying to shake the deadly
book out of the grasp. Hot tears fall.
She laughs with a 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 chick
strikes four, and the rosy dawn soon
after begins to look thr.v.i i tb s lattice
upon the pale form that Inks like
detained sp< ter of ill ■ i r!it. Soon
a madhouse she will mistake li'T rin
lets for coiling - srp -. an i thrust h.-r
white hand through the bare of the
prison, and smite her In ad. rubbing it
back as Though to pu h the scalp from
the skull, shrieking. “My brain! my
•xrr smaa uu llxjiu mai: YY ny
will you go sounding your way amid
the reefs and warning buoys, when
there is such a vast ocean in which you
may voyage, all sail set ?.
a book!
We see so many books we do not un
derstand what a book is. Stand it on
end. Measure it—the height of it,
the depth of it. the length of it, the
breadth of it. Y'ou cannot do it. Ex
amine the paper and estimate the prog
ress made from the time of the impres
sions on the clay, and then on to the
bark of trees, and from the bark of
trees to papyrus, and from papyrus to
the hide of wild beasts, and from the
hide of wild beasts ou down until the
miracles of our modem pajier manu
factories, and then see the paper, white
and pure as an infant’s soul waiting for
God’s inscription.
A book! Examine the type of it.
Examine the printing of it. and see the
progress from tiie time when Solon’s
laws were written on oak planks, and
Hesiod's poems were written on tables
of lead, and the Siniatic commands
were written on tables of stone, on
down to Hoe's perfecting printing press.
A book! It took all tiie universities
of the past., all the martyr fires, all the
civilizations, all the battles, ali the vic
tories, all the defeats, all the glooms,
all the brightnesses, all the centuries to
make it possible.
A book! It is the chorus of the ages;
it is the drawing room in which kings
and queens and i irators and poets and
historians and philosophers come out to
greet you. If I worshiped anything on
earth I would worship that. If I
burned incense to any idol I would
build an altar to that. Thank God for
good books, healthful books, inspiring
books. Christian books, books of men,
books of women, Book of God. It is
with these good books that we are to
overcome corrupt literature. Upon the
frogs swoop with these eagles. I de
pend much for tiie overthrow (if in
iquitous literature upon the mortality
of books. Even good books have a
hard struggle to live.
Polybius wrote forty books: only five
of them left. Thirty books of Tacitus
have perished. Twenty books of Pliny
have perished. Livy wrote one hun
dred and forty books; only thirty-five
of them remain. iEschyius wrote one
hundred dramas; only seven remain.
Euripides wrote over a hundred: only
nineteen remain. Y:trro wrote the biog
raphies of over seven hundred great
Romans. All that wealth of biography
hits perished. If good and valuable
books have such a struggle to live, what
must be the fate of those that are dis
eased and corrupt and blasted at the
very start ? They will die as the frogs
when the Lord turned back the plugue.
The work of Christianization will go on
until there will be nothing left but
good books, and they will take the su
premacy of the world. May you and I
live to see the illustrious day!
COUNTERACT TIIE BAD WITH GOOD.
Against every bad pamphlet send a
good pamphlet; against every unclean
picture send an innocent picture;
against every scurrilou-' song send a
Christian song; against every bad book
send a good book; and then it will be
as it was in ancient Toledo, where the
Toletum missals were kept by the saints
in six churches, and the sacrilegious
Romans demanded that those missals
be destroyed, and that the Roman mis
sals be substituted; and the war came
on, and I am glad to say that, the whole
matter having been referred to cham
pions, the champion of the Toletum
missals with one blow brought down
the champion of the Roman missals.
So it will be in our day.
The good literature, the Christian
literature, in its championship for God
and the truth will bring down the evil
literature in its championship for the
devil. I feel tingling to the tips of my
fingers and through all the nerves of
my body and all the depths of my soul
the certainty of our triumph. Cheer
up, oh men and women who are toiling
for the purification of society! Toil
with your faces in the sunlight. “If
God be for us, who, who can be against
us?”
Lady Hester Stanhope was the daugh
ter of the third Earl of Stanhope, aud
after her nearest friends had died she
went to the far east, took possession of
a deserted convent, threw up fortresses
amid the mountains of Lebanon, opened
the castle to the poor and the wretched
and the sick who wouid come in. She
made her castle a home for the unfortu
nate. She was a devout Christian
woman. She was waiting for the com
ing of the Lord. She expected that the
Ixird would descend in person, and she
thought upon it until it was too much
for her reason. In tiie magnificent
stables of her palace she had two horses
groomed and bridled and saddled and
caparisoned, and all ready for the day
in which her Lord should descend, and
lie on one of them and she on the other
should start for Jerusalem, the city of
the Great King. It was a fanaticism
aud a delusion; but there was romance,
aud there was splendor, and there was
thrilling expectation in the dream!
Ah! my friends, we need no earthly
palfreys groomed and saddled and bri
dled aud caparisoned for. our Lord
when he shall come. The horse is
readv in the equerry of heaven, and
the imperial rider is ready to mount.
“And 1 saw. and behold a white horse,
and lie that sat on him had a bow; and
a crown was given unto him; and he
went forth conquering and to conquer.
And the armies which were in heaven
followed him on white horses, and on
his vesture and on his thigh were writ
ten,-King of kings and Lord of lords”
Horsemen of heaven, mount! Caval
rymen of God, ride on! Charge!
charge! until they shall be hurled back
on their haunches—the black horse of
famine, and the red horse of carnage,
and the pale horse of death. Jesus
forever!
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This question is a “peYt” one, but we
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vour system run-down, until, finally, you
\ re laid away in the grave? Better be
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GOOD TO
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