"A SCORPION AMONG THE PAPERS."
By O. W. Gates
SOME weeks ago a living scorpion was found by a news dealer of New London, Conn., in a package of papers brought to him by a New York steamer. It was natural that the presence of such a venomous insect should create astonishment and excite alarm. It was felt that it was an unwelcome intruder, and that undetected and unrestrained it might endanger precious life. Sent out in a paper it might have carried wretchedness to any home in the city. The brightest and most promising youth might have fallen a victim to its death-inoculating sting. The scorpion was not sent on purpose and with the intention of doing harm. It is supposed that it was brought from the tropics hidden away in fruit. But suppose that men in New York had secured thousands of scorpions, and had stored them away in the bundles of books and papers going forth every day from the great city to all parts of the land. Suppose that living scorpions were coming daily to news dealers, and without concern or thought on their part, were given over into the hands of people of all ages and classes. Suppose it were a common thing to find them among the books of the school children, lurking about their play-ground, secreted in their closets, and even treasured in their pockets. What would you think and say and do? Would you be indifferent? Would you say, "Let the scorpion come?" Would you insist that the youth must learn to let the scorpions alone? Would you claim that if some are stung and die, others will take warning? By no means. You would make loud, earnest and repeated protest. You would unite in efforts to have an end put to the danger. You would call law to your aid. Your course would be just. Duty would compel you to it. Silence and inaction would prove you unfaithful to the welfare of the rising generation and recreant to your sacred obligations as parents and citizens. Of course there is no general trade in living scorpions. None come forward to deal in them for the sole reason that there are no buyers. There would be men to accept the business, no matter how ruinous it might prove, if they could make money by it. Parental anxieties, darkened homes, poisoned and blighted lives would be no obstacles. There are moral scorpions and there are men whose business it is to procure and sell them. They tax their ingenuity to find ways and means of making sales. They are wide awake to discover opportunities for pushing them into schools and homes. They are shamelessly impudent in attracting youthful purchasers. Like "the scorpion among the papers," these more venomous moral insects, these intellectual and spiritual pests, go abroad hidden under book-covers, wrapped up in packages of papers, and are concealed at news-stands and in book-stores under layers of good reading. They take the form of circulars; they put on envelopes printed for the government as their clothing; they ride in our country's mail-bags; they dart out from our post-offices; they slip through the fingers of our postmasters. Doubtless the reader's quick thought has outrun my slow pen. I have mused and the fire of my indignation burns, and I will write on hoping that the flames may catch in prepared material, and spread wide and far. Figures and comparisons aside, I mean by moral scorpions, the debasing, pernicious, and immoral books, pamphlets and papers, which are sent forth to corrupt the minds, fire the base passions, and curse the souls of our precious youth. The scattering of these scorpions is not accidental. Their distribution is planned and intended. Their senders know that their sting is death. They send abroad what is worse than fire-brands and arrows. Not for one day, but all the time, are the moral scorpions on their soul-ruining mission. Not in one direction are they sent, but in all directions. Not to one place do they find this way, but to every place. No home is secure; no youth can be so guarded or so secluded that he is absolutely safe. Our land swarms with them. All the time there are more to follow. Will the supply never fail? Will there come no respite? The locust and grasshopper and Colorado potato-beetle plagues do move on. Will this ever quit the field, hide for a season ever, or seek out pastures new? When shall it once be? Christians may well feel alarm. Let them bravely do their duty and call on God for help! The very presence of this moral scorpion plague is bad enough. Its extent is something fearful to contemplate. Its possible danger is alarming. These, however, are not its worst features. These are found in the imperiled youth themselves. So strong is the impulse of a depraved curiosity, so keen is the relish for unnatural excitement, so hot is youthful blood, so easily blinded are mortal eyes to soul and eternal losses, so inclined are all to shut out the thought of God, that our youth are eager to be poisoned. They seek out the scorpion, and to get them will pay their money and practice deception, if they do not lie and steal. Obtained, they play with them in secret, and when under the infatuation of the sting they have received, they will pass them along to their fellows. Thus by the presence of one or two a whole community of youth may be poisoned, corrupted, ruined. Stung by these scorpions among the papers, the victims quickly show that their moral earnestness is sapped. Their perceptions of right and wrong are blunted. Their aims and purposes lose tone and quality, and grow sordid and selfish. Their minds are spoiled of vigor and strength, and crave only the sentimental, the lustful and criminal. Their native innocence and purity are driven out of the character, and the germs of all spiritual diseases are implanted. It is from the ranks of those who read the "Boys' Papers," and publications of a similiar intellectual and moral tone, that thieves and liars and burglars come. From this trash, much of it the vilest hash of scenes and events from criminal life, boys of spirit and courage find impulses to band themselves together as brigands. This trash promotes tricking and deceit. It is the hot-bed for urging the fungus growth of slang and vulgarity. It is one of the strongest incitements to disobedience, unfaithfulness, and cruelty. It opens and gilds the way to licentiousness and other moral worthlessness. Take this instance as a sample: a young man was arrested for advertising and sending through the mails, under a dozen aliases, obscene matter. While his room at his father's house was being searched, the agent found hidden away in one corner a mass of "Boys' Papers." At this discovery, and as the agent was pulling them over, the young man turned his guilty eyes upon them, and pointing at them with trembling finger, in bitterness and remorse exclaimed, "There, there's the cause of my ruin—that has cursed me and brought me to this." You see he recognized the scorpion among the papers and knew that it had stung him. Parents and teachers, be vigilant. Do not shut your eyes to the fact that there are scorpions among the papers!—Rev. O. W. Gates, in Herald of Truth.