West Virginia Democrat. [volume] (Charles Town, W. Va.) 1885-1890, 1888-04-06
WHY WE SHOULD BLUSH.
DR.. Morgan Dix, of Trinity, New York
City. Shows up the Sin and Cor
ruption of Society Of the
Present Age.

A most powerful attack nPon the
immortality INDUCED in and encour-
aged by the society of the present
day was made Sunday, March 18th
1883 by Rev. Morgan Dix, Rector
of Trinity Protestant Episcopal
Church, New York city. Below is
an extract from the remarkable ser
mon: How easy would it be to
spend a couple of hours in giving in
stances Of our decadence and de
cline l shall not attempt any
such thing. Strsws show tits said,
how the wind blows; and it will sui
flee TO note, as rapidly as possible
some few matters which justify a
deep and growing alarm, lest worse
than this be near at hand. Note
first, the execrable quality of much
that the people read. TO refer to
the public journals is but to begin
They feel a taste for what is vulgar,
coarse, and low, with copious daily
supplies of stuff, adapted to that un-
wholesome appetite. But these an
mails of degraded life are supple
mented by fiction of the same tone,
by novels whose heroes and heroines
are libertines and light and fallen
women, and whose plots are a net
work of seduction, adultery, divorce,
murder, and suicide; by that spe-
cial kind of poetry justly named
The Fleshly," in which this vile
body of ours, with its stirring pas
sions and their manifestation, forms
the perpetual theme. Sensation
novels, dashed with as much indie
cency as possible, and sensuous po-
etry, in which the ideal and the ami
nal are one and the same thing,
from a quality of mind and temper
which finds further attraction in the
drama, as we have it now; in large
measures a repetition of the old, old
story of the working of lust, and
garnished with dances which graft
fy mans sensual appetite and attest
woman's misery and shame. Such
minds, such souls as these, may
turn to art for a new excitement,
and they find it in the imported
works of foreign schools and in
those of home school, which fol-
lows the lead Of dish0nor, and de-
votes itself, mainly if not exclusive
w, to the delineatiOn Of
LAsCIvIOUs AND sALACIoUS FIGURES.
To these demonstration of immoral
craving and declining taste response
is made by the bOOkstalls and news
stands on the street, and by many
shop window, where vile wOOdcuts
and engravings meet the eye and
help on the work of cOrrupting the
public mind; and no doubt the
thing would be much worse than it
is but for the agency of the police,
who, under the indignant protest of
decent citizens, compel the dealers
in obscene literature to keep within
bounds, and prevent them from poi
soning the atmosphere as thorough
ly as the Arch Propagandist and
his creatures would desire them to.
1t would be painful to inquire what
kind of life is developed under the
influences thus at work for our
ruin to guage, with the line and
plummet of Gods word and law, the
decentralization of society. For some
of this there may be excuse. For
example. think how the lowest class
es live; in tenements crowded to-
gether in such wise that it is impos
sible to be decent, but children can
not be brought up like Christians;
that young men and women can
hardly by any chance be kept hon
est, chaste and pure. But what
shall be said of
THE HIGHER CLASSES,
for those whose sins are without
justification, and denote simply
carelessness, irreligion, unbelief !?
Look how young girls are trained
in sOftness and luxury, with the one
idea of making a figure in society
and brilliant marriage: ofmaking
the most of their physical advan-
tages, and alluring the other sex by
the acts best adapted to that pur-
pose. See them on the drive,
a. uo,,c.k 4bo tr0,,hIol sOniol caa. or