The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1885-08-12

olIuIuo ailuSlOn W eNllS WHICH are
known to exist. When some enthusiast
tic reformer breaks this reserve, he is
greeted with words of disapprobation,
and Vanity Fair raises the cry of
"shamel" as if its votaries were too
nice to hear about such things. Hypo-
critics! what they want is to be let
alone, and in the garb of virtue they
stone the prophet who denounces their
practices. We believe that the pulpit
and the religious press have been
checkei too often by this sentiment,
and that silence is sometimes main
tanned from a mistaken tenderness for
the sensibilities of the public. A signal
instance of what we have referred to
is the revelations recently made in the
Pail Mall Gazette, against which a
great cutlery was at once raised, even
in Parliament, and by the city authori-
ties of London, who attempted to pre-
vent the circulation of this journal as
the distributor of obscene publications.
The subject, said these patrons of
propriety, was too disgusting to be
mentioned or discussed in the news
papers. But the vice was worse than
the denunciation of it, and the course
Of the Pail Mall Gazette has been
vindicated by the judgment of the
committee, consisting of the Arch
bishop of Canterbury, Cardinal New
man, the Bishop of London, Mr. John
Morley, M. P, and an eminent lawyer,
to whom the matter was referred. To
this committee the evidence was sub
mltted on which the horrible charges
OF the Gazette were based, and they
have made a report which has been
accepted by the public, and which af-
firms that the Gazette only told the
truth in publishing the articles which
gave such shock to London society,
and which Gas was stately induced the
Prince of Wales to "stop his paper"
The Archbishop of York made an
address some two weeks since, in which
he denounced I" the conspiracy of 81
lence" by which it has been sought to
weaken the Ga=etteS disclosures.
There is lesson to be learned from
this affair: London is not the only
place where vice, such as subjected
Sodom, Tyre, Capernaum to the judy
ment of God exists; nor is vice con-
fined to the great cities like London,
Paris, and Now York nor is the vice
brought to light by the Pail Mall
Gazette the only sin which character
ises the life of our cities, and especially
OF the upper strata of society. There
is fearful amount of vice in all our
cities, and outside of our cities,-and
the shapes which that vice assumes are
Protean.
The gentlemen and ladies who drive
in Central Park, who are whirling in
the mazes of the dance at Saratoga
and Newport, would be very much
shocked to be told seriously that Bos-
ton or Chicago or New York or Vienna
was as corrupt as Sodom-and yet our
Lord declared that it would be more
tolerable in the day of judgment for
Sodom and Gomorrah than for the
cities of Palestine in His day, and we
know what judgment fell upon Jeru-
salem-a judgment that was the type
Of that which shall come at the end of
the world. In that respect was Jeru-
salem worse than Paris or Cincinnati
or New Orleans? We do not mean
that these are worse than other cities
nor that they are as wicked as were
Babylon and Nineveh and the cities
that fell under the wrath of God: we
cannot decide this; but it is worthy of
note, that our Lord, in addressing the
people Of his day-Bethsaida CapefS
naum, ETC., said Of them, that it would
be more tolerable at the last day for
Tyre-Sidon-Sodom, than for them !;
and we only'ask if it may not be that
we are not better than they-and if it
might not happen if our Lord were
here, that he would say, to New York
or Chicago or Cincinnati or Richmond
alt shall be more tolerable in the dav
Of judgment for Sodom and Jerusalem
than for your
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