Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1888-04-27
SATAN IN MODERN SOCIETY.
The Debauchery OF Our Social Life
Attacked by DIR. DIX.

lecture. Most of those there were
women. many of them prominent in So
cial life.
DIR. Dix said that he had to talk upon
q subject which il was at once most
necessary and most unpleasant to dis
cuss. Impurity of mind and body was
one of the most dreadful OF human sins
Love was noble and lofty. and the Bible
everywhere incalculated it. But tn o
best thing when corrupted, became
The worst and of all vile and abomn-
able things the vilest and most abomin-
able was the horrid passion which took
the place of the sacred flame. To the
pure ell things were pure. but to the
lustful nothing was pure. Desire was
natural and good in its place. oh.
God from the whom all holy desires
proceed. were the blessed words of
the collect Bnt the will Of tho flesh
was substituted to the will of God.
when Adam and Eve sinned," said
DIR. Dix, they were ashamed, for they
knew that they were wicked. But men
have become hardened now. and have
set up the lust of the flesh as a special
and worthy desire. Schools of phil
osophy teach this frightful doctrine.
Poetry idealzes it Painters and sculp-
tors delight to picture the nude in las
civious forms. The carnal has been
exalted with cultus called religion.
1t is noticeable fact that this sin. which
theology has named conupiscence, goes
hand in hand with infidelity. St. Glenn
ent of Alexandria has depicted the
shameful tn ngs of paganism in words
which | shall not repeat, but which, if
did, would drive you from your seats
with horror. The characteristic of pa
gsnism has always been RIGHTEOUSNESS.
The battle which Christ began is still
on-the church against the world,
against pagan philosophy and habits.
Wherever pagan philosophy is, its fol-
lowers adopt the horrid pagan pracC-
ices rs much as they can, and look
wistfully back to the panorama of pa
gan lust and corruption in the old
DAYS.
The devil has a double-headed pro-
paganda on foot to-day-of inhdelity
and of impurity. He is at work every
where. The missionaries of the cross
find the heather naked, INDECENT and
liccntious. And in France we see in
this age political propaganda of athe-
ism and a social and literary carnival
of indeceucy. There flourishes liter
ature which is unequalled for licentious-
ness in any time or age and school
of art whose motto is 10 display the
naked human body in every lasciv Gus
and filthy attitude. Nowhere is there
more easy field for this devil pro-
paganda that IN America, and the
signs of his handiwork are on every
side. We see the public journals pam
dering to an unwholesome appetite by
feeding the public mind with the filthy
details of criminal and licentous deeds
We see popular school of fiction, the
plots of whose books are mostly adul-
terry, murder, seduction and suicide;
whose heroes and heroines lead i'm
moral Ives and make jest of purity.
We see poetry which seductively
stimulates animal passion; dramas
which whet sentuel appetite and glor-
ify murder and shame; salacious aud
licentious figures used on every hand
as advertisements, and p clures inn
ported from a foreign school | am
ashamed to say, OF a shocking lascivious
character.
"And what is the state of society in
which these things are? The poorer
classes. living in crowded tenement
houses in which it is imposs BILE TO be
decent! Girls among the higher class
es taught to cultivate the attractions
of their bodies and to lure men by
these-young girls with their lunches
Of dozen courses and half dozen
courses of wine-shamefully attired at
the opera and fondled by the hands OF
careless men. and holding supper par
ties afterward. where champagne and
the liquors notwithstanding to broad
speeches and filthy gossip and unclean
stories which make them lose all faith
in virtue and manhood of men-when
married, so accustomed to flattery and
Irritation that their husband comes TO
occupy second place in their afiec.
tons until separation or divorce fol-
lows!
"These are the commonest things to-
day. We see men in high social places
whom no self-respecting woman
ought to admit over the threshold OF
her home-firtations carried on by
people, each of whom has plighted his
or her troth, probably. TO two or three
persons scandal and disgraceful stories
about households. with strange limiting
at mysterious and immoral doings in
high places the common gossip; mar
ried men with the devils look in their
eyes and their adulterer's desire in
their hearts running after young girls.
and all biding the men and women hold
their tongues who dare 10 cry out
aga ust the horrid business.
If these are the things in sight in
the open day. what in heavens name
are the things out of sghtP Think of
the sin and shame which one night in
New York hides! In the slums and
faubourgs, dance houses and bathrooms
the theatres. with naked women on the
stage and naked women in the boxes
with men behind the scene. dallying
with the actresses-men who invent
a story Of business and absence for the
ears of loving wives and daughters at
home; the adulterer stealing forth and
saying to himself. In the twilight no