Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1874-09-12
/" THE sEDUCER:AND HIS VICTIM"

49," HS0oSoAs0hAvO LIN V4O4x
A resident of Minneapolis picked up
an old scrap.book created in his hours
of boyish leisure Is or 20 years ago, and
found therein a sermon on "The Sedu-
Ger and His Victim" which was de-
livered by Henry Ward Beecher in
Brooklyn, in the year 1855. The Min
neapolis gentleman copied the sermon
and sent it to the st. Paul Pioneer.
We extract the following significant in
dictment of the seduccr:
The seducer! Playing upon the
most sacred passions, he betrays inno-
cence. How! By its tenderest facul-
ties; by its trust; by its unsuspecting
faith; by its honor. The victim often
and often, is not the accomplice so
much rs the sufferer, betrayed by an
exorcism which bewitched her noblest
affections, and became the suicide of
virtue! The betrayer, for the most in
tense selfshness, without one noble
motive, without one pretense of honor,
by lies; by devilish jugglery of
fraud, by binding the eye, confusing the
conscience, misleading the Judgment,
and instilling the dew of sorcery upon
every flower of sweet affection, delib-
erately, heartlessly, damns the confding
victim! Is there one shade of good in
tention; one glimmering trace of light
Not one. There was not the most
shadowy, tremulous intention of honor.
1t was sheer, premeditated, wholesome
ruin, from beginning to end. The ac-
cursed sorcerer opens the door of the
world to push her forth. She looks
out all shuddering; for there is shame,
and sharp-toothed hatred, and chatter
ing SANDER, and malignant envy, and
triumphing jealousy, and murderous re-
venge-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, a
brothers shame, a sisters anguish. 1t
is a vision of desolation, a plundered
home; an altar where honor, and purity,
and virtue, and peace have been insidi-
ously sacrificed to the foul Moloch. All
is cheerlessness to the eye, and her ear
catches the sound of signing and mourn
ing, walls and lamcnts; and far down,
at the horizon of the vision, the murky
cloud for moment lifts, and she sees
the very bottom of infamy, the ghastli-
ness 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 turn and clasps his
knees in awful agony: Leave me not
Oh! spare me-save me-cast me not
away!' Poor thing--she is dealing with
demon! Spare her?-save her? The
polished scoundrel betrayed her to
abandon her, and walks the street to
boast his hellish deed. It becomes him
as 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 infuriate tramp of public in
dignation. On her mangIed corpse
they stand to put the laurals on her
murderer's brow! When I see such
things as these, I thank God that there
is judgment, and that there is hell!'