American citizen. [volume] (Butler, Butler County, Pa.) 1863-1872, 1864-01-20
The Social Hazards Of Sinful Life.

young man named William Doad, grad
uated with eclat at Cambridge Uniyersi-
ty, England Being the son Of clergy
man, he had enjoyed the benefits of early
religious training. Having the advanta-
ges of fine person, superior mind,
thorough education, and good family con
nections, his life prospects were as bright
and promising as those of any young man
in his class. Who could have predicted
that such fair beginning would be sue
ceeded by an ignoble end Yet so it was.
For time this young mans path was
sunlit, and his hopes bloomed out into
beautiful successes. Having entered the
university, he soon became singularly pop
ular. Hi, fine phiseque, charming voice,
elegant manners, and eloquent utteranees,
led adpiring thousands to throng his
church Mobiles, wits, and high-born la
dies heard him with delight, and filed his
ears with their batteries Preferments
followed in the wake of popularity. Lee
turships, college titles, a prebend's stall, a
royal chaplaincy, vicarage, and the tu-
torship of the young Earl of Chesterfield,
were given him. The highest honors of
his exalted profession hung like ripening
fruit within his grasp.
Alas. for this favored child of Provi-
dence! His priestly robes concealed
worldling's heart. An insane passion for
the society of the wealthier, the titled,
and the nobly born, burned like a consum-
ing fame in his breast. He yielded him
self to its impulses, and it beguiled him
into a style of living, the expenses of
which preyed like locusts on his income,
and made him poor in the midst of plenty.
Reason pleaded and conscience protested
against this passion in vain. 1t was his
Calypso Syren-like, it fascinated him,
and drew him further from the line of du-
ty, until it bound him in heavy cha ms of
impractieable debts Then came hope
less struggle for freedom, which ended
only with his utter ruin. Still listening
to the voices of his passion, he tried to
break his chains with the hammer of crime.
First he sought to win the gift Of u rich
rectory by offering bribe to the lady Of
the lord chancellor He was rcpelled with
merited scorn, and scourged by the popu-
lar tongue into disgraceful privacy.
Would that this stern rebuke had been
needed. But it was not. His passion
lived His debts were still unpaid. Then
his evil genius triumphed, and in a sad,
sad moment he forged bond for over
twenty-six thousand dollars The deed
was discovered lie was tried, convicted,
sentenced to death, and twenty-six years
after his graduation at Cambridge, the
eloquent and popular William Dodd, d
d., LII, D., expiated his crime on the fel-
on's scaffold.
In this unhappy man behold the type
of class of persons which may be count
ed by thousands, as they throng the high
ways and byways of society. They may
be found in prisons, in alms-houses, in Gel
lars and garrcts, in dens of shame, in
haunts of poverty, and in the hiding pla-
ces of crime.
Like DR.. Dodd, multitudes of them
once stood on no despicable moral and So
cial height The probabilities of a rep
utable, virtuous, and prosperous career,
were in their case fully equal to those Of
the average of unrenewed men and wo-
men. The great social wheel which, in
its endless revolutions, is continually re-
versing the positions of men, seemed more
likely to carry them up than to cast them
instead of seeking their supreme good in
their Creator, they sought it in the crea-
ture As he chose to feed on the foam of
human praise, and to regard the circles of
fashionable life as his souls berishable de-
light and to find their paradise in the pres
ent. Hence like the unhappy Dodd, having
separated themselves from their Creator,
they became the victims of their own
lusts. Their own desires growing impe-
rious, led them with an imperial arm down
to the depths Of sorrow, poverty, shame,
and crime.
"What has all this to do with me ?" in
quires my reader. You might as wisely
ask what the soldier has to do with the
clarion's voice What the mariner with
the bell which utters its solemn warning as
it sways over the sunken rock {? Has not
the history of DIR. Dodd, and the class of
ruined ones he represents, clarion voice,
BELLS note of alarm for you? Have
you not entered the fatal door by which
they passsd into the house of shame and
sorrow? Are you not like them, seeking
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