Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1885-05-20
1DyANCING THE WHITE CROSS.
plain Talk to the Peyvs About the
Social EVIL.

White Cross sermon in aid of tn
obnrch movement against adultery wa
,,rooched by the Rev. DR.. B. T. DeCosta
r the chapel of ST. Augustine in Hous
+nn street, New York, east of the Bowerv
~Perhaps you did not come here to see
Cod " he said. Perhaps you woulG
ratber see something else, not in spirit
bnt with the fleshly eye. The icentious
lows were ashamed of their vice and
tried TO cover it, but the Lord called them
Tbited sepulcheres. The sacrifice of ali
that was best and purest in women was
an essential rite of some old heather re-
Tcions. and the votaries made virtue of
constant vice. The high priest in their
temple of Venus was a courtesan, and
tbe religion was prostitution.
at is suggested by some that certain
evils always have existed and always
will exist, and that as man is possessed
with certain appetites, he will commit
certain sins, but it does not follow, any
more than there will always be poverty
because a certain social condition makes
needy class. A revolution is to come
that will give all honest and capable men
a fair chance. Society is not always 90
ING to be responsible for the manufacture
of poor and of drunkards, or of prosti-
tutes either. The social revolution is not
going to take in only a part, but the
whole-to reconstruct society from top to
bottom.
"Tne question is, not will a certain por-
ton OF men and women sin, butwill thew
sin bv your connivance? The social evil
is cancer, and society must DESTROY it or
society will die. 1t has destroyed every
people that let it alone, from Sodom to the
nineteenth century. If it is let alone here.
it will destroy America.
"The dram shop is the antecedent to
the house of the strange woman. OF
1000 fallen women whose cases have been
studied nearly all fell through strong
drink. Many people prepare for vice by
intemperance in eating. 1t is idle for any
man to think of being pure while he
plays the glutton. So with bad literature,
whether it comes through silly novels or
through vile and cheap Sunday papers,
which fathers place on their tables Sun
day mornings.
Il charge again that you respectable
people are responsible for the existence of
the strange woman. She would die out
in six weeks were it not for the support of |
llLOA 5ittlAAS III NllC pCHC' 1llS w ltlVC SlOSS
is a pure Christianity applied to every de- |
partment of the physical and moral |
world. Purity of the body must go with
purity of the sonl Then men will be |
what they ought to be, and they will |
never be ashamed to look a wife, sister, |
or mother IN the face.
"The double standard of virtue which |
bears harshly against women is accepted |
most strongly by women who turn against |
their own sex. If there is any object to |
be found in the earth equal to mean and |
man it is heartless woman.
A woman may repent and become as |
chaste as the icicles in the temple of |
Diana, and yet she is not allowed to come |
into the honse and scrub the floor. In |
the man s case not even repentance is re-
Iuired. Women, l beg of you to stand |
Up for your sex and make one standard
or men and women alike. We seek to
ave woman by saving man. In ninety
eight cases out of every hundred the
nan is the cause of the fall. Who is
paying to keep the 10000 women of New
York on the streets tonight? Man is
aging to keep them there and to damn
hem there ~