Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1863-06-17
From the New York Evening Post.
SHAMEFUL LIFE


5, recent series of sermons on PHASES
= Life, delivered one entitled ''ShamefI
Life" that excited more than usual a
:, tention. As the evening happened to /
l. stormy, he was requested to repeat il, an
did so last evening, when the spaciou
church was crowded to excess, and man
were obliged to leave. unable TO find eve
standing room. After the preliminar
exercises, consisting of prayer, reading c
the Scriptures, and singing by the con
gregation, led by Sunday school children
: Mr.. Chaplin delivered his discourse. tax
ing as his text the 10th and llth verse
of. the 9th chapter of John:
when Jesus had lifted himself w
and saw none but tie woman, he said un
TO her, Where are thine accusers Hatl
no man condemned thee? She said, n,
man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her
Neither do | condemn thee 90 thy wa,
aad sin no more"
Mr.. Chaplin remarked that he shoulC
leave the question of the authenticity o
the passage from which the text was tax
en- TO be settled by the critic. He wa,
satisfied to take the works, as he found
them in our English version, as genuine
expressions of the spirit of Cbrist's teach
ing, This passage presented, first, oul
Savior in contact with the shameful
phase of human life; secondly, it showed
men, convicted by their own passions, not
daring TO least the first stone :" and il
exhibited, thirdly, Christ's treatment OF
penitent guilt in his words, Neither dc
| condemn thee: 90 and sin no more" He
I proceeded to show the bearing of the
/ text upon the subject of shameful life,
in the order. of these three points sugges-
/ ted by the text.
/ In remarkable work of fiction pub
/ lished some time since, two personages
/ in the story were represented as entering
| the Palace of Eblis, the hall of Fate. the
abodes of the dead, and there, amid 8
! profusion of splendors, rows of columns,
rich perfumes, stately banquets, crystal
vases, dances and music, they observed
the vast crowd traversing the boundless
galleries, each with his right hand upon
his heart, all in silence, while over the
vast granduer of the scene there hung a
shadow of lowering gloom. This descrIp-
tiou not inaptly symbolized our civiliza-
ton. In the midst of the great city,
with its grandeur, its luxury, its show of
refinement, there hangs the dark shadow
of one prevailing sin, the presence of
which every one knows and feels, but
OF which no one daers to speak, even tho
10 thousands the guilt and anguish are as
close as the fiery torment burning within
those hearts which the spectral crowd
pressed with their right hands, as they
moved through the halls of Eblis. Even
in speaking OF that sin now, as speak he
must, he must refer to it by circumlocu-
tion-as something to be understood, but
not to be eXpressed-and yet there was
no social evil touching more nearly the
hearts of all, or calling more earnestly
for earnest discussion and uncompromis-
ing effort. 1t was an evil as old as the
records of the race, coeval with the hu-
man heart, cursing alike savage life and
refined society, mingling its polluted
stream with the foremost tides of civili-
cation, marching with armies, moving
with colonies, waiting on literature. phil !
osophy and religion, and as sure to be |
found in great cities as crime or death
And as in the text, so everywhere and |
at all times it has been woman who |
stands in'the foreground and upon whom |
the malediction and condemnation fall. |
1t IS to her the accusers point, not caring |
they themselves are clear of all |
guilt. Woman is the victim always
sinned against or SHINING. He appealed |
in behalf of these victims. Consider a \
this army of 6,000 unfortunate |
women, so many of them mere children, /
and the majority accomplishing their
guilty career and dying on the very
threshold Of existence. Homes some
where they have had. many of them
homes Of purity hopes were born with
them, to be crushed in their perdition;-
hearts to be broken by their shame
While they have whirled through life in
guilty revelry, honored heads have grown
gray, and gone down in sorrow to the
grave.
We should pity fallen woman. Not
merely for herself personally should we
be lifted above all prohigate scorn and
fiendish contempt in the treatment of
his subject, but for the humanity that in
her is stained and perverted; for the type
Of pure womanhood that lies disheveled
and cast down under the light of heaven
and before God. The life of every one
Of these victims, if truthfully unfolded,
would be terrible romance of reality
Some were born in vice, and their history
5 therefore the more terribly appalling
ACl SAu4O4l llOl Olll u OtHEduSu hOul-
InhOod, but degraded childhood they /:
,ame pure into the world, as the white
now flake falls into the mire and pollu-
ion of the streets; graded in a sarcopha-
yus, swothed with the cerements of 1
moral death. But many others have
allen, and it has been a fall as awful as if
t were the fall of a star in the sphere |
n the earlier stages, where sin SINNERS
n fashionable show and etiquette, where
he deaths head wears a glittering crown,
here may be an illusion to cheat the
ense OF shame; but as the victim de- i
cends with rapid steps to baser CONVEX {
ION and rougher realities, the hand-writ- |
ng comes out fearfully distinct; the fall [
N soul makes known the reflected shape t
nd shadow of ITSELF And at the close i
II her ghastly career, as on a bed of {
traw IN some damp, dark department, / 1
inging with curses, the dying wreck of l i
humanity and womanhood lies. to her [
ar the voice of memory comes, as to the
rowning comes the sound of far off sab Q
ath bells. Before her glazing eve ap- j
ears a mothers look of broken-hearted
20; she hears fathers lament of ruined a
ope and pride; but she has now only to n
ly aside the garment of mortality as she n
nee did the garment of innocence and n
ruth. See how the infamy they serve Y
erves them. G
The silence and apathy existing in re- C
alton to this evil are not justified by no c
ions of delicacy. The social cancer is /,
ot to be cured by refusing 10 talk about 4
!; it is not to be ignored. We have no il
ght to shrink with sanctimonious deli b
acV from fha harasf rnanfiop Of ,.,;1f i