Part 56 (1/2)

{421}

Poisonous Literature and Bad Pictures.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PALESTINE WATER CARRIERS.]

1. OBSCENE LITERATURE.--No other source contributes so much to s.e.xual immorality as obscene literature. The ma.s.s of stories published in the great weeklies and the cheap novels are mischievous. When the devil determines to take charge of a young soul, he often employs a very ingenious method. He slyly hands a little novel filled with ”voluptuous forms,” ”reclining on bosoms,” ”languis.h.i.+ng eyes,” etc.

2. MORAL FORCES.--The world is full of such literature. It is easily accessible, for it is cheap, and the young will procure it, and therefore become easy prey to its baneful influence and effects. It weakens the moral forces of the young, and they thereby fall an easy prey before the subtle schemes of the libertine.

3. BAD BOOKS.--Bad books play not a small part in the corruption of the youth. A bad book is as bad as an evil companion. In some respects it is even worse than a living teacher of vice, since it may cling to an individual at all times. It will follow him and poison his mind with the venom of evil. The influence of bad books in making bad boys and men is little appreciated. Few are aware how much evil seed is being sown among the young everywhere through the medium of vile books.

4. SENSATIONAL STORY BOOKS.--Much of the evil literature which is sold in nickel and dime novels, and which const.i.tutes the princ.i.p.al part of the contents of such papers as the ”Police Gazette,” the ”Police News,” and a large proportion of the sensational story books which flood the land. You might better place a coal of fire or a live viper in your bosom, than allow yourself to read such a book. The thoughts that are implanted in the mind in youth will often stick there through life, in spite of all efforts to dislodge them.

5. PAPERS AND MAGAZINES.--Many of the papers and magazines sold at our news stands, and eagerly sought after by young men and boys, are better suited for the parlors of a house of ill-fame than for the eyes of pure-minded youth. A newsdealer who will distribute such vile sheets ought to be dealt with as an educator in vice and crime, an agent of evil, and a recruiting officer of h.e.l.l and perdition.

6. SENTIMENTAL LITERATURE OF LOW FICTION.--Sentimental literature, whether impure in its subject matter or not, has {422} a direct tendency in the direction of impurity. The stimulation of the emotional nature, the instilling of sentimental ideas into the minds of the young, has a tendency to turn the thoughts into a channel which leads in the direction of the formation of vicious habits.

7. IMPRESSIONS LEFT BY READING QUESTIONABLE LITERATURE.--It is painful to see strong intelligent men and youths reading bad books, or feasting their eyes on filthy pictures, for the practice is sure to affect their personal purity. Impressions will be left which cannot fail to breed a legion of impure thoughts, and in many instances criminal deeds. Thousands of elevator boys, clerks, students, traveling men, and others, patronize the questionable literature counter to an alarming extent.

8. THE NUDE IN ART.--For years there has been a great craze after the nude in art, and the realistic in literature. Many art galleries abound in pictures and statuary which cannot fail to fan the fires of sensualism, unless the thoughts of the visitor are trained to the strictest purity. Why should artists and sculptors persist in shocking the finer sensibilities of old and young of both s.e.xes by crowding upon their view representations of naked human forms in att.i.tudes of luxurious abandon? Public taste may demand it. But let those who have the power endeavor to reform public taste.

9. WIDELY DIFFUSED.--Good men have ever lamented the pernicious influence of a depraved and perverted literature. But such literature has never been so systematically and widely diffused as at the present time. This is owing to two causes, its cheapness and the facility of conveyance.

10. INFLAME THE Pa.s.sIONS.--A very large proportion of the works thus put in circulation are of the worst character, tending to corrupt the principles, to inflame the pa.s.sions, to excite impure desire, and spread a blight over all the powers of the soul. Brothels are recruited from this more than any other source. Those who search the trunks of convicted criminals are almost sure to find in them one or more of these works; and few prisoners who can read at all fail to enumerate among the causes which led them into crime the unhealthy stimulus of this depraved and poisonous literature.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

{423}

Startling Sins.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

1. NAMELESS CRIMES.--The nameless crimes identified with the hushed-up Sodomite cases; the revolting condition of the school of Sodomy; the revelations of the Divorce Court concerning the condition of what is called national n.o.bility, and upper cla.s.ses, as well as the unclean spirit which attaches to ”society papers,” has revealed a condition which is perfectly disgusting.

2. UNFAITHFULNESS.--Unfaithfulness amongst husbands and wives in the upper cla.s.ses is common and adultery rife everywhere; mistresses are kept in all directions; thousands of these rich men have at least two, and not seldom three establishments.

3. A FRIGHTFUL INCREASE.--Facts which have come to light during the past ten years show a frightful increase in every form of licentiousness; the widely extended area over which wh.o.r.edom and degrading l.u.s.t have thrown the glamor of their fascinating toils is simply appalling. {424}

4. MORAL CARNAGE.--We speak against the fearful moral carnage; would to G.o.d that some unmistakable manifestation of the wrath of G.o.d should come in and put a stop to this huge seed-plot of national demoralization! We are reaping in this disgusting centre the harvest of corruption which has come from the toleration and encouragements given by the legislature, the police, and the magistrates to immorality, vice, and sin; the awful fact is, that we are in the midst of the foul and foetid harvest of l.u.s.t. Aided by some of the most exalted personages in the land, a.s.sisted by thousands of educated and wealthy wh.o.r.emongers and adulterers, we are reaping also, in individual physical ugliness and deformity, that which has been sown; the puny, ill-formed and mentally weak youths and maidens, men and women, to be seen in large numbers in our princ.i.p.al towns and cities, represent the widespread nature of the curse which has, in a marked manner, impaired the physique, the morality, and the intelligence of the nation.

5. DAILY PRESS.--The daily press has not had the moral courage to say one word; the quality of demoralizing novels such as have been produced from the impure brain and unclean imaginations; the subtle, clever, and fascinating undermining of the white-winged angel of purity by modern sophists, whose prurient and vicious volumes were written to throw a halo of charm and beauty about the brilliant courtesan and the splendid adulteress; the mixing up of l.u.s.t and love; the making of corrupt pa.s.sion to stand in the garb of a deep, lasting, and holy affection--these are some of the hideous seedlings which, hidden amid the glamor and fascination of the seeming ”angel of light,” have to so large an extent corrupted the morality of the country.

6. NIGHTLY EXHIBITIONS.--Some of you know what the nightly exhibitions in these garlanded temples of whorish incentive are. There is the variety theatre, with its disgusting ballet dancing, and its shamelessly indecent photographs exhibited in every direction. What a clear gain to morality it would be if the accursed houses were burnt down, and forbidden by law ever to be re-built or re-opened; the whole scene is designed to act upon and stimulate the l.u.s.ts and evil pa.s.sions of corrupt men and women.

7. CONFIDENCE AND EXPOSURE.--I hear some of you say, cannot some influence be brought to bear upon this plague-spot? Will the legislature or congress do nothing? Is the law and moral right to continue to be trodden under foot? Are the magistrates and the police powerless? The truth is the harlots and wh.o.r.emongers are master of the situation; the moral sense of the legislators, the magistrates, and the {425} police is so low that anything like confidence is at present out of the question.

8. THE SISTERHOOD OF SHAME AND DEATH.--It is enough to make angels weep to see a great ma.s.s of America's wealthy and better-cla.s.s sons full of zeal and on fire with interest in the surging hundreds of the sisterhood of shame and death. Many of these men act as if they were--if they do not believe they are--dogs. No poor hunted dog in the streets was ever tracked by a yelping crowd of curs more than is the fresh girl or chance of a maid in the accursed streets of our large cities. Price is no object, nor parentage, nor home; it is the truth to affirm that hundreds and thousands of well-dressed and educated men come in order to the gratification of their l.u.s.ts, and to this end they frequent this whole district; they have reached this stage, they are being burned up in this fire of l.u.s.t; men of whom G.o.d says, ”Having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease sin.”

9. LAW MAKERS.--Now should any member of the legislature rise up and testify against this ”earthly h.e.l.l,” and speak in defence of the moral manhood and womanhood of the nation, he would be greeted as a fanatic, and laughed down amid derisive cheers; such has been the experience again and again. Therefore attack this great stronghold which for the past thirty years has warred and is warring against our social manhood and womanhood, and constantly undermining the moral life of the nation; against this citadel of licentiousness, this metropolitan centre of crime, and vice, and sin, direct your full blast of righteous and manly indignation.