The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-06-16
TNFANTICIDE.
Kro,n ne N. Y. World.

and strong minded women, WIN one aooolu,
lifting up testimonies against the same SIN
and warning the people 10 aVoio' ~ oil Po'Ii "a
their eternal damnation, we may be sure that
tbe crime thus denounced is alarinlngly pre-
voIent and of grievous nature. These watch
NO., mon the walls of Zion differ with each
other as TO the cause of the evil which they
denounce. and the female reformers trace it
Go sources which the clergymen ignore; but
they all unite in proclaiming its enormity,
and in predicting the woful consequences
which its continuance will be sure TO entail
upon the nation. AS long ago as the begin
ming of last Lent, the Episcopal Bishop
of Western New York warned his flock
AGAINST ''the blood-guiltiness of ante-natal
infanticde" in words which only too
plainly indicated that his former private
exhortations against this crime had
failed to check its practice among his
people. eff any doubts existed heretofore
as to the propriety of my warnings on this
subject" said the Bishop, ''they must now
disappear before the fact that the world itself
is beginning to be Mortified by the practical
results of the sacrifices to Moloch which defle
our land" 1t is rather a new thing for the
Church thus to be hidden to reform itself, lest
the world should be shocked by its practical
impiety; but doubtless the reproof was well
deserved. "Again warn you, continued the
Bishop, ''that they who do such things cannot
inherit eternal life If there be a special dam
nation for those who shed innocent blood
what must be the portion of those who have
no mercy upon their own flesh 2"
The pastoral letter of the Roman Catholic
Archbishop and Bishops of the Province
of Baltimore, published last month, not
only boldly denounces ''the daily increasing
practice of infanticide, especially before
birth" and warns the people of that Church
who are yet happily strangers to this unna-
tural vice" against being tempted into it by
the example of their Protestant neighbors,
but points out, as one of its causes, Goddess
education" '"The notoriety which this mon
strous crime has obtained of late and the
hecatombs of infants that are annually sacri-
feed to Moloch to crafty an unlawful pas
sion, says the pastoral letter, ''are a suffici-
ent justification for our alluding to painful
and delicate subject, which should not even
be mentioned among Christians. The crying
sin of infanticide is most prevalent in those
localities where the system of education with
out religion has been longest established and
been most successfully carried out" The
crime exceeds in enormity the cruelty of
Herod as the child who is slain before its
birth dies deprived of the essential grace
of baptism. ''If," exclaims the letter, ''it is
sin to take away the life even of an enemy;
if the crime of shedding innocent blood cries
to Heaven for vengeance, in what language
can we characterize the double guilt of those
whose souls are stained with the innocent
blood of their own offspring?" And the
bishops do not hesitate also to denounce, as
among the causes which indirectly lead to this
as well as other evils, "a morbid taste for in
decent publications, Immoral or positively
obscene theatrical performances, and ''the
modern fashionable dances, commonly called
German or round dances" the stately minuet
and the discreet cotillon being we presume
comparatively innocuous, while the legitimate
drama may still be witnessed by the faithful
without contamination.
The New School Presbyterian Assembly
adjourned without making any deliverance
on the subject of infanticide although they
went further than the Roman Catholic bishops
In regard to 'the social dance, the theatre
and the OPERA" and, by reaffirming deliver
ances of former Assemblies on these matters,
denounced the lifting up of the heel in any
manner to the sound of music and forbade
their members even to go to hear Edwin
Booth play ''Hamlet," or to listen to Miss
Kellogg singing Norma" On the other
hand, the Old School Assembly wisely avoided
taking tithes of aniseseed and cumin, and said
nothing about saltatory amusements or dra-
matte entertainments, but manfuly and
boldly turned their attention to the
weighter matter of unscriptural divorces
and infanticide, delivering a testimony
against the latter crime remarkable for its
harmony with that of the Roman Catholic
bishops ''The horrible crime of infanticide"
say they, especially in the form of the des-
truction by parents of their own offspring
before birth, prevails to an alarming extent. y
They as their Roman Catholic brethren do,
ascribe this evil to the constant promulga-
tion of false ideas of marriage and its duties
by means of books, lectures" etc, and i'm
pure publications" and they very solemnly
declare that they regard 'the destruction by
parents of their offspring before birth with
adherence, as a crime against God and
against nature;" and, ''as the frequency OF
such murders can no longer be concealed,
they "warn those that are guilty of this crime
that unless they repent they cannot inheri
eternal hfe."
Thus the churches utter their voices, ant
1t may be hoped that testimony so en-
phatic, SO unanimous, and SO solemn will no
be disregarded by those to whom it is ad
dressed. 1t is beyond our present purpose t
inquire why it is that the crime thus inveighet
against prevails almost wholly among ou
native American families, is more com
mon in New England than in any other por
tion of the country, and is unknown amony
the Roman Catholics. The latter ascribe thi
to the influence of the confessional; and SOM
Protestant clergymen have recently felt con
strained to say that the one sacrament of tn
Roman Church which Protestants had beer
taught to look upon as the greatest of al
Satan's devices for encouraging immortality
has the practical effect of saving tn
Roman Catholic women of the land fron
the commission of the crime of whicl
their Protestant sisters are SO frequentl
guilty Leaving this point undiscussed a
beyond the province of secular journal, lie
MS see what the women reformers have to sa