But there is more danger, I think, from many of the family papers, published once a week; in those stories of vice and shame, full of infamous suggestions, going as far as they can without exposing themselves to the clutch of the law. I name none of them; but say that on some fashionable tables there lie "family newspapers" that are the very vomit of the pit.
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 through ticket to h.e.l.l, by express, with few stopping-places, and the final halting like the tumbling of the lightning train down the draw-bridge at Norwalk--sudden, terrific, deathful, never to rise.
O, the power of an iniquitous pen! If a needle puncture the body at a certain point, life is destroyed; but the pen is a sharper instrument, for with its puncture you may kill the soul. And that very thing many of our acutest minds are to-day doing. Do not think that this which you drain from the gla.s.s, because it is sweet, is therefore healthful: some of the worst poisons are pleasant to the taste. The pen which for the time fascinates you may be dipped in the slime of unclean literature.
Look out for the books that come from France. It has sent us some grand histories, poems, and pure novels, but they are few in number compared with the nastiness that it has spewed out upon our sh.o.r.e.
Do we not read in our Bibles that the ancient flood covered all the earth? I would have thought that France had escaped, for it does not seem as if it had ever had a thorough washing.
In the next place, if you would shun an impure life, avoid those who indulge in impure conversation. There are many people whose chief mirthfulness is in that line. They are full of innuendo, and phrases of double meaning, and are always picking out of the conversation of decent men something vilely significant. It is astonishing in company, how many, professing to be _Christians_, will tell vile stories; and that some Christian women, in their own circles, have no hesitation at the same style of talking.
You take a step down hill, when, without resistance, you allow any one to put into your ear a vile innuendo. If, forgetting who you are, any man attempts to say such things in your presence, let your better nature a.s.sert itself, look the offender full in the face, and ask--"What do you mean by saying such a thing in my presence!" Better allow a man to smite you in the face than to utter such conversation before you. I do not care who the men or women are that utter impure thoughts; they are guilty of a mighty wrong; and their influence upon our young people is baleful.
If in the club where you a.s.sociate; if in the social circle where you move, you hear depraved conversation, fly for your life! A man is no better than his talk; and no man can have such interviews without being scarred.
I charge our young men against considering uncleanness more tolerable, because it is sanctioned by the customs, habits, and practices of what is called high life. If this sin wears kid gloves, and patent leathers, and coat of exquisite fit, and carries an opera-gla.s.s of costliest material, and lives in a big house, and rides in a splendid turn-out, is it to be any the less reprehended? No! No!
I warn you not so much against the abomination that hides in the lower courts and alleys of the town, as against the more d.a.m.nable vice that hides behind the white shutters and brownstone fronts of the upper cla.s.ses.
G.o.d, once in a while, hitches up the fiery team of vengeance, and ploughs up the splendid libertinism, and we stand aghast.
Sin, crawling out of the ditch of poverty and shame, has but few temptations; but, gliding through the glittering drawing-room with magnificent robe, it draws the stars of heaven after it.
Poets and painters have represented Satan as horned and hoofed. If I were a poet I should describe him with manners polished to the last perfection, hair flowing in graceful ringlets, eye a little blood-shot, but floating in bewitching languor; hands soft and diamonded; step light and artistic; voice mellow as a flute; boot elegantly shaped; conversation facile, carefully toned, and Frenchy; breath perfumed until it would seem that nothing had ever touched his lips save balm and myrrh. But his heart I would encase with the scales of a monster, then fill with pride, with beastliness of desire, with recklessness, with hypocrisy, with death. Then I would have him touched with some rod of disenchantment until his two eyes would become the cold orbs of the adder; and on his lip would come the foam of raging intoxication; and to his feet the spring of the panther; and his soft hand should become the clammy hand of a wasted skeleton; while suddenly from his heart would burst in crackling and all-devouring fury the unquenchable flames; and in the affected lisp of his tongue would come the hiss of the worm that never dies.
But, until disenchanted, nothing but myrrh, and balm, and ringlet, and diamond, and flute-like voice, and conversation aromatic, facile, and Frenchy.
There are practices in respectable circles, I am told by physicians, which need public reprehension. Herod"s ma.s.sacre of the innocents was as nothing compared with that of millions and millions by what I shall call _ante-natal_ murders. You may escape the grip of the law, because the existence of such life was not known by society; but I tell you that at last G.o.d will shove down on you the avalanche of his indignation; and though you may not have wielded knife or pistol in your deeds of darkness, yet, in the day when John Wilkes Booth and Antony Probst come to judgment, you will have on _your_ brow the brand of _murderer_.
Hear me when I repeat, that the practices of high life ought not to make sin in your eyes seem tolerable. G.o.d is no respecter of persons; and robes and rags will stand on the same platform in the day when the archangel, with one foot on the sea and the other on the land, swears, by Him that liveth forever and ever, that Time shall be no more.
O, it is beautiful to see a young man living a life of purity, standing upright where thousands of other young men fall. You will move in honorable circles all your days; and some old friend of your father will meet you and say: "My son, how glad I am to see you look so well. Just like your father, for all the world. I thought you would turn out well when I used to hold you on my knee. Do you ever hear from the old folks?"
After a while you yourself will be old, and lean quite heavily on your cane, and take short steps, and hold the book off to the other side of the light. And men will take off their hats in your presence. Your body, unharmed by early indulgences, will get weaker, only as the sleepy child gets more and more unable to hold up its head, and falls back into its mother"s lap: so you shall lay yourself down into the arms of the Christian"s tomb, and on the slab that marks the place will be chiselled: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see G.o.d."
But here is a young man who takes the other route. The voices of uncleanness charm him away. He reads bad books. Lives in vicious circles. Loses the glow from his cheek, the sparkle from his eye, and the purity from his soul. The good shun him. Down he goes, little by little. They who knew him when he came to town, while yet lingering on his head was a pure mother"s blessing, and on his lip the dew of a pure sister"s kiss, now pa.s.s him, and nay, "What an awful wreck!"
His eye bleared with frequent carousals. His cheek bruised in the grog-shop fight. His lip swollen with evil indulgences. Look out what you say to him. For a trifle he will take your life. Lower down and lower down, until, outcast of G.o.d and man, he lies in the alms-house, a blotch of loathsomeness and pain. Sometimes he calls out for G.o.d; and then for more drink. Now he prays; now curses. Now laughs as fiends laugh. Then bites his nails to the quick. Then runs both hands through the shock of hair that hangs about his head--like the mane of a wild beast. Then shivers--until the cot shakes--with unutterable terror. Then, with uplifted fist, fights back the devils, or clutches the serpents that seem winding him in their coil. Then asks for water, which is instantly consumed by his cracked lips. Going his round some morning, the surgeon finds him dead.
Straighten the limbs. You need not try to comb out or shove back the matted locks. Wrap him in a sheet. Put him in a box. Two men will carry it down to the wagon at the door. With chalk, write on the top of the box the name of the exhausted libertine.
Do you know who it is?
That is _you_, O man, if, yielding to the temptations to an impure life, you go out, and perish.
There is a way that seemeth bright, and fair, and beautiful; but the end thereof is BLACKNESS OF DARKNESS FOREVER.
THE GUN THAT KICKS OVER THE MAN WHO SHOOTS IT OFF.
Blasphemy is a crime that aims at G.o.d, but does its chief harm to the one that fires it off.
So I compare it to a piece of imperfect firearms to which the marksman puts his eye, and, pulling the trigger, by the rebound finds himself in the dust.
I tell you a story, Oriental and marvellous. History speaks of the richest man in all the East. He had camels, oxen, a.s.ses, sheep, and what would make any man rich even if he had nothing else--seven sons and three daughters. It was the custom of this man"s children to have family reunions. One day he is at home, thinking of his darling children, who are keeping banquet at their elder brother"s house.
Yonder comes a messenger in hot haste, evidently, from his looks, bearing evil tidings. Recovering himself sufficiently to speak, he says: "The oxen and the a.s.ses have been captured by a foraging party of Sabeans, and all the servants are butchered except myself." Another messenger is coming. He says that the sheep and the shepherds have been struck by lightning. Another messenger is coming. He says that the Chaldeans have come and captured the camels, and killed all but himself. Another messenger, who says: "While thy sons and daughters were at the feast, a hurricane struck the corner of the tent, and they are all dead!" But his misfortunes are not yet completed. The old man is smitten with the elephantiasis, or black leprosy. Tumors from head to foot; face distorted; forehead ridged with offensive tubercles; eyelashes fall out; nostrils excoriated; voice destroyed; intolerable exhalation from the whole body; until, with none to dress his sores, he sits down in the ashes, with nothing but broken pieces of pottery to use in the surgery of his wounds. At this point, when he needed all consolation and encouragement, his wife comes to him, and says, virtually: "This is intolerable! Our property gone, our children slain, and now this loathsome, disgusting disease is upon you. Why don"t you swear? Curse G.o.d and die!"
But profanity would not have removed one tumor from his agonized body; would not have brought to his door one of the captured camels; would not have restored any one of the dead children. Swearing would have made the pain more unbearable, the pauperism into which he had plunged more distressing, the bereavement more excruciating.
And yet, from the swearing and blasphemy with which our land is cursed, one would think there were some great advantage to be reaped from the practice. There is to-day in all our land no more prevalent custom, and no more G.o.d-defying abomination, than profane swearing.
You can hardly walk our streets five minutes without having your ears stung and your sensibilities shocked. The drayman swearing at his horse; the tinman at his solder; the sewing-girl imprecating her tangled thread; the bricklayer cursing at his trowel; the carpenter at his plane; the sailor at the tackling; the merchant at the customer; the customer at the merchant; the printer at the miserable proofsheet; the accountant at the troublesome line of figures;--swearing in the cellar and in the loft, before the counter and behind the counter, in the shop and on the street, in low saloon and fashionable bar-room.
Children swear, men swear, ladies (!) swear. Profanity from the lowest haunt calling upon the Almighty, to the fashionable "O Lord!" of the glittering drawing-room.
This whole country is blasted with the evil. Coming from the West, a gentleman sat behind two persons conversing. Profanities were so frequent in the conversation of the two persons in front, that the gentleman behind took out his pencil and paper and made a record. The profanities filled several sheets in the course of two days, at the close of which time the gentleman handed the ma.n.u.script to the persons conversing. The men said: "Is it possible that we have uttered so many profanities in the course of two days?" The gentleman said: "Yes."--"Then," said one of the men, "I shall never swear again."
I make no abstract discussion. I hate abstractions. I had rather come right out and have a talk with you about a habit that you admit to be wrong. This habit has grown from the fact that the young often think it an evidence of manliness. There are thousands of boys and youth who indulge in it. I hear children along the street, but just able to walk, practising this iniquity. They cannot talk straight, but they get enough distinctness to let you know that they are d.a.m.ning their own souls and the souls of others. Oh! it is horrible to see a little child, the first time it lifts its feet to walk, set them down on the burning pavement of h.e.l.l! Between sixteen and twenty years of age there is apt to come a time when a young man is as much ashamed of not being able to deliver an oath as he is of the dizziness that comes from his first cigar. He has his hat and coat and boots of the right pattern, and there is but one thing more now to bring him into _fashion_, and that is a capacity to swear.
So there are some of our young men surrounded by an atmosphere of profanities. Oaths sit on their lips, they roll under their tongues, and nest in the shock of hair. In elegant drawing-rooms they abstain from such utterances, but fill club-room and street with their immoralities of speech. You suggest the wrongfulness of the habit, and they thrust their finger in the sleeve of their vest, and swagger, and say: "Who cares!" They have no regard for G.o.d, but great respect for the ladies. Ah! there is no manliness in that.
The most ungentlemanly thing a man can do is to swear. This habit is becoming more and more prevalent because of the immorality of parents and employers. There are very many fathers who indulge in this habit.
They feel moved to utter themselves in this way, but first look around to see if their children are present. They have no idea that their children know anything about it. The probability is that if you swear, your children swear. They were in the next room and heard you, or somebody told them about your habit. Your child is practising to do just as you do. He is laughed at, at first, for his awkwardness, but after a while he will swear as well as you.
Then look at the example of master carpenters, masons, roofers, and hatters. You know how some of you go around the building, and, when the work of your journeyman and subordinates does not please you, what do you say? It is not praying, is it? Forthwith, your journeymen and subordinates learn the habit. Hence our hat-shops, and house-scaffoldings, and side-walks, and wharves, and dockyards, and cellars, and lofts ring with blasphemies.
Men argue that, if it is right for a man worth fifty or a hundred thousand dollars to swear, it can be overlooked in men who have merely their day"s wages. Because they are poor must they be denied this one luxury?
This habit becomes more prevalent because of the infirmities of temper. There are many men who, when at peace, are most fastidious of speech, but when aroused into the violence of pa.s.sion, blaze with imprecation. The Oriental"s wife spoken of would not have liked her husband to be profane under ordinary circ.u.mstances, but now that the camels are gone, and the sheep are gone, and the property is gone, and the boils have come, she says: "Why don"t you swear? Curse G.o.d and die!" Others, all the year round, have not the froth of profanity wiped from their lips, but try to expend all the fury of a twelvemonth in one red-hot paragraph of five minutes. A man apologized for his occasional swearing by saying that, once in a year, in this way he cleared himself out. There are men who have no control of their blasphemous utterances, who want us to send them to Congress. Others have blasphemed in senatorial places, pretending afterwards that it was a mere rhetorical flourish.
Many fall into this habit through the frequent use of what are called by-words. I suppose that all have favorite phrases of this kind in which there is no harm; but a profusion of this style of speech often ends in bald profanity. It is, "I declare!" "My stars!" "Mercy on me!"
"Good gracious!" "By George!" "By Jove!" and "By heavens!" and no harm is intended; but it is a very easy transition from this kind of talk to that which is positively obnoxious. The English language is magnificent, and capable of expressing every shade of feeling and every degree of energy and zeal; and there is no need that we take to ourselves unlawful words. If you are happy, Noah Webster offers to your tongue ten thousand epithets in which you may express your exhilaration; and if you are righteously indignant, there are in his dictionary whole armories of denunciation and scorn, sarcasm and irony, caricature and wrath. Utter yourself against some meanness or hypocrisy in all the blasphemies that ever smoked up from perdition, and I will go on to denounce the same meanness and hypocrisy with a hundred-fold more stress and vehemency in words across which no slime has ever trailed, and through which no infernal fires have shot their forked tongues,--words pure, innocent, all-impressive, G.o.d-honored, Anglo-Saxon,--in which Milton sang, and Bunyan dreamed, and Shakespeare wrote.
But whatever be the source of this habit, it is on the increase. At sixteen, boys swear with as much facility as the grandfather did at sixty. Our streets are cursed by it from end to end. Our hotels, from morning until midnight, resound with it. Men curse on the way to the bar to get their morning dram; curse the news-boy who cries the paper; curse the breakfast for being cold; curse at the bank, and curse at the store; curse on the way to bed; curse at the stone against which they strike their foot; and curse at the splinter that gets under the nail. If you do not know that this is so, it is because your ear has been hardened by the perpetual din of profanities that are enough to bring down upon any city the hurricane of fire that consumed Sodom.
The habit is creeping up into the higher circles. Every woman despises flat and unvarnished imprecations; but in the most elevated circles there are women who swear without knowing it. They have read Bulwer, and George Sand, and the exaggerated style of some of our imported as well as home-made periodical literature, until they do not actually know what is decency of speech. With fairy fan to their lips they utter their oaths, and, under chandeliers which discover not the faintest blush, recklessly speak the holiest of names. This is helped on by the second gla.s.s of wine, that is _perfectly harmless_; and though no one dare charge her, being so finely dressed, with anything like intoxication, yet there comes a gla.s.siness to the eye, and a glow to the cheek, and a style of speech to the tongue that were not known before she took the second gla.s.s that was _perfectly harmless_.
One wild, terrific wave of blasphemy is sweeping over the land. See the effects of this widespread profanity in the increasing perjury.
If men in ordinary conversation so commonly use the name of G.o.d, is it wonderful that in the jury-box, and in the alderman"s office, and in the custom-house so many swear falsely? Notice the way an oath is administered. They toss the Bible at a man, and in the most trivial way say: "So help you G.o.d--kiss the book." I suppose enough lies are every day told in the custom-house to sink it. Smuggling, although it be done against positive oath, is in some circles considered a grand joke; and you say some day to your friend, "How can you sell those goods so cheaply?" and your friend says with an eye-twinkle, "The Custom-House tariff was not as high on those things as it might have been." Men more easily break their solemn oaths than formerly. What strange verdicts juries do sometimes render! What peculiar charges judges do sometimes make! What unaccountable slowness sheriffs and their deputies sometimes exhibit in the execution of their writs! What erratic railroad enterprises suddenly pa.s.s at our State capitals! What wonderful changes Congress makes in the tariff on liquors!
What is an oath? Anything solemn? Anything appealing to the Almighty?
Anything stupendous in man"s history? No! It is "kissing the book!"
In a land where the name of G.o.d so often becomes the foot-ball of what are called respectable circles, how can we expect that it can excite any veneration when, in the presence of county clerk, or alderman, or judge, or legislative a.s.sembly, it is used in solemn adjuration? This habit lowers, bedwarfs, and destroys the entire moral nature. You might as well expect to raise harvests and vineyards on the side of belching Stromboli as to have any great excellency grow upon your soul when it so often overflows with the scoriae of this awful propensity.
You will never swear yourself up. You will swear yourself down. The Mohammedans, when they find a slip of paper they cannot read, put it aside, for fear the name of G.o.d is on it. That, you say, is one extreme. We go to the other.
You are willing to acknowledge this a miserable habit, and would like to have some recipe for its cure.
Reflect much upon the uselessness of the habit. Did a volley of oaths ever start a heavy load? Did curses ever unravel a tangled skein? Did they ever extirpate the meanness of a customer? Did they ever collect a bad debt? Did they ever cure a toothache? Did they ever stop a twinge of the gout? Did they ever save you a dollar, or put you a step forward in any great enterprise? or enable you to gain a position, or to accomplish anything that you ever wanted to do? How much did you ever make by swearing? What, in all the round of a lifetime of profanity, did you ever _gain_ by the habit?