You may get a ticket straight
to hell by express. By Talmadge. If you would, lead
a pure life. Have nothing to do with bad books
and impure newspapers. With such immoral literature,
as is coming forth from our swift revolving printing presses, there
is no excuse for dragging oneself through sewers of unchastity.
Never read a bad book. By the time you get through the
first chapter, you will see the drift of it. if you find the
hoof prints of the devil in the pictures, or in the style, or
in the plot, away with it. You may tear your coat, or break
a vase, and repair them again. But it takes less than an hour
to do your soul a damage which no time can entirely repair.
Look carefully over your child's library. See which book he reads
after he has gone to bed, with the light turned down. Young
man, as you value heaven, never buy a book from one of those
men who meet you in the square and, after looking both ways
to see if the police are watching, shows you a book very cheap. Have him arrested, as you would
kill a rattlesnake. Grab him and shout, Police! Police! But there is more danger,
I think, from many of the family newspapers. Some of them contain
stories of vice and shame, full of evil suggestions, and go as
far as they can without exposing themselves to the clutch of the
law. On some tables in Christian homes,
there lie family newspapers, which are the very vomit of the
pit of hell. The way to ruin is cheap. It
costs three dollars to go to Philadelphia, six dollars to
Boston, thirty-three dollars to Savannah. But, by the purchase
of a bad paper for ten cents, you may get a ticket straight
to hell by express, with few stopping places. and the final
stop is like the tumbling of the train over a bridge, sudden,
dreadful, deathful, never to rise. Oh, the power of an iniquitous
pen! If a needle punctures the body
at a certain point, life is destroyed. But the pen is a sharper instrument,
for with its puncture you may kill your soul. Do not think
that that book which you find fascinating and entertaining
is therefore healthful. Some of the worst poisons are
pleasant to the taste. The pen which for the time fascinates
you may have been dipped in the slime of impure hearts. This Puritan devotional has been
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