Connecticut western news., 1893-05-11
THE SCARLET WOMAN
REV. DR. DIXON ON THE GATES OF
 HELL IN MODERN BABYLON.

REV. DR. DIXON ON THE GATES OF
 HELL IN MODERN BABYLON.
 His Discussion of the Social Evil sin-How
 1t Threatens the Foundations of Society.
 The Various So Called Remedies and
 Regulations.
 NEW YORK, May Rev. Thomas Dixon, Jr., delivered this morning to the usual throng able to gain admittance to the hall the third sermon of the series on 'sThe Shadows of the City" The sermon was devoted to the discus sion of the social evil. The text chosen was Proverbs iii, 5, "The lips of 8 strange woman drop honey, but her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.
 The subject of the social evil is one upon which our teachers of morals have maintained 8 strange silence through the past century. There has been an effort to ignore apparently the existence of this tremendous evil. There has been in fact 8 conspiracy of silence that has been the opportunity of the devil. Miss Frances Willard in a recent article on this subject expresses herself most vigor- ously upon this point She says most truly: "A conspiracy of silence, whether conducted by boys in the pantry or men in society, is almost always conspiracy of sin. It is pretty sure to be at the ex- pense of something precious to the home keeper. The hush policy has had ample time in which to disport it's failures, and 1t has miserably failed. Bad men would have good women think that culture like that which separated Lazarus from Dives must separate them from women no worse than the very men who inculcate this shameful heresy Bad men would have us believe that to be virtuous we must be ignorant, and that the least contact with such women that they hold themselves free to corsort W 4th would be to us proclamation.
 Not only has society suffered from this conspiracy of silence, but the moment the silence has been broken by some bold reformer, some prophet of righteousness and truth, who has dared to draw the sword and challenge the enemy, that mo- ment there is raised the cry of sympathy and of pity for the so called Magdalene of society. This cry usually comes from 8 set of hypocrites who are themselves the contributors to the very evil over which they mourn. They tell us at once of the pity and the mercy of Jesus. They have always scorned the life and the example of the Christ, whom they now quote with 50 much unction. If ever an incl dent in the life of Jesus has been per verted and caricatured by interpreters, this incident of a woman taken in adul- tery is surely an example. The truth which Jesus taught is so simple that 8 wayfaring man, though fool, need not err therein. He did not teach that the woman who thus sinned against society was deserving only of tenderness and sympathy and love.
 The acts of Jesus must be taken in their setting of time and place to be un- derstood. The circumstances were sim pie. A crowd of hypocritical pharisees and scribes, desiring to tempt Jesus and to entrap him in his words in some vio- lation of the Mosaic law, dragged this covering woman before him, and though they themselves were lecherous wretches they whined before him, asking if the woman should be stoned. Jesus, turning upon them in the righteous disgust of his pure soul, knowing their own i'm purity and villainy, said to them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast stone at her." And when all skunk away and none remained to stand the test of standard of purity and of truth Jesus said to the woman Neither do I condemn thee; go thy way; from henceforth sin no more." He did not say go back to your life of shame. His answer to these impure pharisees was the great truth that there is but one standard of purity, and that it applies equally to man as to woman. This was news to the pharasaic world. It was an arraignment of the imperfection of the Mosaic law.
 There is no truth delivered by Jesus that SO cuts to the very heart of the fal- lacies of those who would excuse this sin and those who would build false system of tolerance upon it, in which men are excused and even cared for in their excesses by law, as does this deliv- erance from Christ to the pharisee and E on which the modern Magdalene and her hypocritical supporters and the woman of the New Testament and Christ can possibly stand. The modern Magdalene is different creature from the woman to whom Jesus spoke. She maintains an establishment which is itself in violation of the laws of society, an establishment whose motive is gain, whose methods are the methods of the pirate and the muggler, and around whose evil resort, run in defiance of every law of society. cluster . hundred kindred crimes.
 When the cry of these hypocrites who were whining the example of Christ, whose name they had only spoken be- fore to profane, was recently filling the ears of the public in certain great city, through the public prints, working woman, reused to indignation by the maudlin sympathy of these men for her disreputable sisters, wrote most re- markable reply in daily paper She arraigned these men for their hypocrisy and for the injustice of their position. She declared that disreputable women, who sold out their honor, and who threatened home and home life and soci- ety, received more sympathy than hon. est womanhood which preferred poverty and hard toll to life of shame. The plain truth is that the hour has come in the history of our great cities for ac- tion upon the part of those who love humanity. The long silence must be broken. The long stupor of inaction must be thrown of if we would save our young men and women from death.
 CITY PRODUCT.
 The plain truth IS that the social evil is increasing each dag in po,cer and Uis'- ule,ace and threatens more and more the foundations of social order.
 This is true
 Frst-Because the city is overshadow- ing the earth. Prostitution is a peculiar product of the city. It is practically un- known as an institution in the rural dis Tyhoro y,v,blic rv,.piov, io o ,,oxuo,.