Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1859-07-09


general strife for wealth, the desire for lux.
ury is largely the motive power The OBJ.
ject kept prominently in view is feastinQ.-
eye-feasting, ear-feasting, tonguefeasting,
or the feasting Of other or of all the senses
and this beyond natural desire, and with
the wish and intent to coax from the or.
gans Of sense more Of pleasure than they
can afford with health to themselves and
the souls to which they minister.
Now my opinion is that to a man, or
body Of men, prosttuted or in process of
prostitution to sense, there is very little use
In talking OF religion or morals. Those
are motives which they do not understand
So address myself to the selfshnesss of
the age, as a motive, the strength of which
may not be questioned, and bid it with
draw its hand from this FIRE on pain of los
ing it. "Cent per cent do we pay for eve.
ry vicious indulgence" says the proverb :;
but 1t is too moderate by half in its esti
mate Of expense, for a youth of sensual
pleasure can never compensate for life of
pain. If You do not believe this, ask the
debauchee whose senses and sensibilities
were long since burned to ashes Seek
further testimony, If you will Of her whose
brief life of sensuality is closed by aban-
donment or of him whose gluttony has
made him disgustingly bulky bundle of
ailments, or Of him whose nerves shiver
with the poison on which they live. If you
say that am dealing with extremes, with
out analogies to yourselves, retire into
your own consciousness, and qeustion what
you md there-old sins of sense that start
up and ill you with remorse and fear-old
wounds Of conscience gaping and bleeding
still-old fractures Of character that refuse
to unite, and make you shudder at your
own weskness-oId stains upon your purity
that memory will not allow to fade. This
process will prove to any man of ordinary
weakness, who has been subjected to ordi-
nary temptations, that never, in single
instance, has he induIged in an unlawful
sensensual pleasure without paying for it a
thousand times in pain.
The universal fact, based in universal
experience is, that there is nothing in the
world that makes so poor return for its
cost as sensual pleasure. No man ever
traded extensively in this line without be-
coming a bankrupt in happiness. 1t does
not pay, and cannot be made to pay, aud
every man would see and understand this
II he would keep an account of his receipts
and expenditures Let me help you to
open a book Of this kind Credit sensual
pleasure for spree-a night of hilarity,
produced by drinking and feasting and
then turn to the other side of the account,
debit it with the details of cost money
enough to furnish bread for hundred
hungry mouths day of languor, pain
and Incidence damaged reputation
which may interfere with the projects and
prospects of whole life loss of selfre-
spect, and deadening of moral sensibility;
reduction of the capacity Of enjoyment
and of the stock of vitality the sullen
pangs OF reproving conscience the tears
OF mother and the severer anguish of
father-all these, and more, for an hour of
artificial insanity How does the account
look
Suppose we try another: Credit Sensual
Pleasure for the illicit qualification Of a pow
erful passion. Then place the cost upon the
debit side of the ledger shame and fear,
conscious loss of purity, the possession of
foul secret that is to be carried into all So
ciety, and into all relationships disease &
remorse, or what is more than all these
hardness, brutality, and the formation of
habits whose end is ruin. ! may not,
through fear Of of giving offense, enter in
to all the details of the debit side of this
account. They may be found and read of
all men in graveyards, in hospitals, in broth
els in garrets, and cellars, in ruined fami-
lies and ruined hearts. Now does this thing
pay 1?
l have presented only the private side of
this account, and that but imperfectly.-
There is public side: The innumerable
paupers whose life is supported by the
state, owe their pauperism, directly or re-
motely, in three cases out Of four, to SEN
strong drink, lcentiousness, or
some form of extravaganza that proceeded
from devotion to sensual pleasure. ldi-
OTIS begotten in drunkenness, lunaticS
through various forms of sensual vice, GRIM
inals who are Gagged in every Jail aud prison
like wild beasts, diseased creatures, alike
loathsome to themselves and others, crowd
ed into numberless pestilent hospitals,-
all these are public burdens, imposed by the
sensuality. If we run through the whole
catalogue Of crime we shall find them all
growing directly or indirectly out Of this
vice. In fact, it may be
said that all crime, with all its consequences,
is but manifestation of the dominance Of
sense over reason an conscience.
In this view-and no one knows better
than its victims that it is the correct view.
Sensuality rises into the position of the
grand scourge Of mankind. 1t is the mother
of disease, the nurse of crime, the burden of
taxation, and the destroyer ofsouls. Oh ifthe
world could rise out of this swamp of
sensuality, rank with weeds and dank with
deadly vapors-full of vipers, thick with
pitfalls, and lurid with deceptive lights, and
stand upon the secure nights Of virtue where
Gods sun Shines and the winds of heaven
breathe blandy and healthfully, how would
human life become blessed and beautiful
The great burden Of the world rolled of,
how would it spring forward into grand
career of prosperity and progress ! This
change for this country, rests almost en-
tirely with the young men Of the country.
1t lies with them more than any other class,
and more than all other classes, to say
whether this country shall descend still
lower in its path to brutality, or rise high