The Camden journal. [volume] (Camden, S.C.) 1836-1851, 1840-09-19

Moral courage quaIls before example anu
yields its recuperative energies to the force
of numbers. Public sentiment andprivate
feeling are right, but general practice is
most wofully wrong. The discrepancy,
annihilates the influence of opinion, and
reduces the community to state OF moral
atrophy in which the aliment that might
act as nourishment to health, becomes IN
reality the food of the disease.
To correct this state of things, women
can do more than Legislatures, or even
Churches. They give tone to sentiment
regulate manners and customs, hold
the reigns Of social government, and have
the will to choose the path and the power
to direct the forces. Let them bring IN
sound principles, right dispositions, Chris
tan noralsas adiuncts in the labor Of phi
lanthropy and the corrective will be felt,
and the benefits will follow. Let the work
of reform begin in every department, from
the nursery to the marriage scene, Let
conscience, truth, opinion, practice cor
respond fearlessly, impartially; be sus-
tanned by the old, the settled, the influ-
ential, and change will go out upon the
world bright as a sunbeam, and reviving
as the dew.
Very few men would, surrender the
pleasures of female society, the expecta-
ton of domestic bliss, and consent to live
despised and outcast for the sake Of those
degrading enjoyments that now tempt, NOT
only from their adaptation to the grosser
appetites, but from the fact that they do
not materially affect his standing in socie-
ty or his chance of acceptance and pre-
ferment. Thousands. upon thousands
there are who have nerve and hardlhood
enough to brave the anger Of God and
the woe of the bottomless pit, who yet
lack the courage to confront public opinion
and brave the thunders Of fashions's va
tican. The caustic wit Of offended digni-
ty comes upon their nerves like convul.
sion of galvanism. These Sybarites quail
with terror at the very idea of expatria-
ton from the realm of their adoption, and
many of these sons of pleasure who have
grown so effeminate that they cannot sleep
with a rose-leaf doubled under them, may
be stretched upon bed of thorns by the
decree of. woman. The tortures of an
ticipated exile from the worship Of their
idol and the glory Of the temple will
wiring from them a pledge of reformation
and secure from them the execution of
the promise. The inducements to virtue
become objects of sight and sense. Time
anticipates eternity. The thunders of
the Last Day have an echo in the deci-
sions of society and the fires of retribu-
ton are presaged by the scorching con-
tempt of independent and indignant vir-
tue.
There is nobleness of mind, generosi-
ty of sentiment, honesty that may be
trusted, tenderness that will not fail, away
from religion; but in the fear of God and
with affection for my race charge you
confde not the fortunes Of your body, nor
the peace of your soul to the drunkard's
mercy, nor to the gamblers honor. Re-
ject, despise the man who makes fellow
ship with the licentious, or pollutes his
lips with the dialect of blasphemy, Link
not your heart and your destiny with him
who, too indolent to seek honorable en-
ployment, consents to trespass on the
kindness of friends for his daily bread,
sells his birthrigt to purchase the ease of
a lounger- -immolates the independence of
a man for the worthlessness of drone.
Shun the alliance of the fop-the fool in
the court of fashion, who is indebted to
the tailors skill for the grace Of his figure
and to chemical extracts for his best re-
commentators altar is the dres-
sing chamber, and the worthless mass of
flesh and blood reflected by the miTcr,
the god of his idolatry.
l do not mean by this, that you can
work the mighty change. l would not
have you set up for reformers. But
would that your personal influence were
on this side of the question. Let your
opinions, your manners, your associations,
all declare your ,abhorrence Of vice, and
your utter separation of sympathy from
the sins of fashion, and the errors of the
multitude to do evil, Identify yourselves
with the refined, the intellectual, the be-
nevolent, and thus take the proud position
to which your circumstances and claims
entitle you, and which a discerning public