New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1874-08-16
An Old Sermon of Beecher,s.

A resident .Of Minneapolis picked up an
old rap-book created in his hours of boy.
ish leisure fifteen or twenty years ago, and
found therein sermon on "The Seducer
and his Victim" which was delivered by
Henry Ward Beecher in Brooklyn, in the
year 1856. The Minneapolis gentleman
copied the sermon and sent it to the st.
Paul Pioneer. We extract the following
significant indictment of the seducer:
1.-THE seducer! Playing upon the most
sacred passions, he betrays innocence.
Hew9 BY its tenderest faculties; by its
trust; by it's unsuspecting faith; by its
honor. The victim often and often is not
the accomplice SO much as the suffer er,
betrayed by an exorcism which bewitched
her noblest affections, and became the
suicide of her virtue! The betrayer, for
the most intense selfshness, without one
noble motive, without one pretense of honor
by lies; by devillish jugglery of fraud;
by binding the eye. confusing the con-
science, misleading the judgment, and
Installing the dew of sorcery upon every
flower OF sweet affection, deliberately,
heartlessly, damns the confiding victim!
Is there one shade of good intention; one
There was not the most shadowy, tremu.
lOus intention of honor. 1t was sheer, pre-
meditated, wholesale ruin from beginning to
end. The accursed sOcerer opens the door
of the world to push her forth. She looks.
out all shuddering, for there is shame and
sharp-toothed hatred, and chattering SLAM
der, and malignant envy, and trlumphing
jealousy. and murderOus revenge-these are
seen rising before her; clouds full of fire,
that burn but will not kill. And there is
for her want and poverty and gaunt famine.
There is the world spread out. She sees
father and mother heartlessly abandoning
her; brothers shame. sisters anguish.
1t is vision of desOlatiOn, q plundered
home; an altar where honor, and purity,
and virtue, and peace have been insidiOusly
sacrificed to the foul Moloch All is cheerful
ness to the eye, and her ear catches the
sound OF signing and mourning walls and
Iaments; and tar down. at the horizon of the
vision, the murky cloud for a moment lifts,
and she sees the very bottom of infamy, the
ghastliness of death, the last spasm OF
horrible departure, the awful thunder of
final doom. All this the trembling,
betrayed creature sees through the open
door of the future; and with voice that
might move the dead, she turns and clasps
his knees in awful agony: Leave me not!
oh! spare me-save me-cast me not awayr
Poor thing-she is dealing with demon!
Spare hera-save her9 The polished scoun-
drel betrayed her to abandon her, and
walks the street to boast his hellish deed
1t becomes him as q reputation! Surely
society will crush him! They will smite the
wolf and seek out the bleeding lamb. Oh.
my soul, believe it not! What sight is that!
The dropping victim is worse used than the
internal destroyer! He is fondled, courted,
passed from honor to honor, and she is
crushed and mangled under the infuriated
tramp of public indignation. On her
mangled corpse they stand to put the
laurels ON her murderer's brow! When 1
see such things IS these thank God there
is judgment, and that there is hell!'