Squatter sovereign., 1856-05-13
SHORT PATENT SERMONS.
ON CITIES.
3 Y D W, II.
. x T.

Cities are sinks that gather filth and vice.
nv HEARERs Nothing can be more
true than the words of my text. Cities
are great grease-spots of vice upon the
fair carpet of the earth-putrid pools of
corruption, that generate some of the most
loathsone creatures in the form of human
ity imaginable and perhaps few whose
souls noald b cozl1i 10 aszssay pose and
unstained, were it not for the contamina-
tion of the polluted atmosphere by which
they are surrounded. Lock, my friends,
at this city of sin IN which am now So
journing mlsery-stricken metropolis
of the new world. 1t is a most beautiful
blemish upon the surface of the globe-a
bad egg, that appears fair upon the out
side. but contains the foulest of stencil
within. lately performed pilgrimage
to that offencer ulcer upon the heart of
Gotham, vulgarly called the Five Points,
| went not only to inspect the public streets
in that neighborhood, but also as an in
spector of the public morals; and found.
to my regret, that the condition of the one
was equally as wretched as that of the
other. Oh, my friends saw that the
filth of the cutters which casts its sicken-
ing effluvia abroad, was true and per-
feet emblem of the putrescent moral mat
ter that surrounded the hearts of its mise
rabie inhabitants; and I couldn't help ex-
claiming-My God can it be possible
that any of my fellow creatures can take
delight or find the least particle Of plea
sure in thus wallowing in the mire of IL
centious vice! No-they cannot know
how pleasant are the paths of virtue, so
long as they remain sunk knee-deep in
the swamp of sin; and / should seek no
greater bliss than be granted with the
privilege and gifted with the power to
grasp the men even by their coat-tails and
the women by their pet.icoats, and haul
them out from this foul puddle of sin, to
dry upon the sunny banks of salvation.
My friends-this splendid Manhatten
isle of ours; of which we boast, is but the
receptacle of filth of foreign nations
The scum of mortality that is drifted
across the Atlantic, and washed upon our
shores. is enough to spoil days appetite
for dinner. am willing to acknowledge
that some noble specimens of the human
race from Europe and the East, see fit to
adopt this as their country and home and
that many beautiful exotics, In the way of
carnal feminine flowers, are transplanted
to American soil; but ] do seriously as
sert, that the majority of the TRANSATLANTIC
genus homo, whom fate, fortune, or cir
cumstance drives hither, are minus mo-
ney, and not oyerplus in morality-ineura.
BILE cancers, upon the broad back of the
community. Ere they understand the
principle upon which rest the pillars o.
our democratic institutions, and before
they have learnt the great A in the alpha.
bet Of republieanisln, they sacrilegiously
enter the Temple of Freedom:. and ths
fumes arising from the incense of igno
rance they burn upon the altar of liberty
are enough to stihe the big bellows Of {
blacksmith. A city like this, my friends
is, and always will be, subject to sucl
baleful influence; and if the legitimat,
protectors of our national welfare, do no
keep one eye open at least, TO the best in
5 terests of the country, the palladium of ou
f political rights is of no more use than try
2 ing to frighten thunderbolt with pal
2 of pistols and a bowie knife. But, m,
5 foreign friends, allow me to remark that
am related to you all by consanguinity-
t that look upon you as brothers in th
q human household-that whatever say,
: dictated by truth, unswayed by fear @
e friendship-and that I consider you. as
] whole, are deserving of all, if not more
e than Americans can boast of-and knos
a that many of my own countrymen are i
the habit of boasting till they burst.
e. My hearers-in order to be convince
: that cities are sinks which gather filth an
y vice, you have not toniy TO look at the pres
2 ent corrupt condition of modern Gotham
bu: 10 read upon the pages of history, ho,
ancient cities of magnifcenee have sun
in oblivion beneath their overpowerin
burthens of vice. A dead, suIphurou
lake now covers the sites of Sodom an
d Gomorrah. They continued to gathe
n filth upon filth, till the fiery bosom of th
). Almighty swept the streets Of all rubbish
IS and purified them with the flames of de
- struction. Where mighty Babylon ono
g stood, the sasyrs now dance in desc
S wild-Jerusalem became bathed in bloos
and the pioughshare turned the turf abov