The Caucasian. (Clinton, N.C.) 188?-1913, 1893-05-11
THE SCARLET WOMAN
sEv. DR.. DIXON ON The GATES or
HELL IN MODERN BABYLON.

HELL IN MODERN BABYLON.
an. piseasssan of the Social Evil Sin How
Threatens the Foundations of Society.
The yarioa. So Called Remedies and
Regulations
NEW York. May Z - Rev. Thomas
Dixon, Jr, delivered this morning 10 the
usual throng able to gain admittance
TO the hall the third sermon OF the
series on The Shadows of the City.
The sermon was devoted 10 the discus
sion of the social evil The text chosen
was Proverbs iii, 5. Tho lips OF a
strange woman drop honey, bu. her feet
90 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 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 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. 1t 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 its failures,
and it 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 consort with
would be to us Il 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 a
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 so much JUNCTION If eve. an Incl
dent in the life of Jesus has been per
verted and caricatured by interpreters
this incident of a woman taken in adul-
terry is surely an example. The truth
which Jesus taught is so simple that a
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 I'M
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 in
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 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 pharisaes
was the great truth that there is but one
standard of purity, and that 1t applies
equally to man as to woman. This was
news to the pharasaic world. 1t was an
arrangement of the imperfection of the
Mosaic law
There is no truth delivered by Jesus
that SO cuts to the very heart of the fall
lacies of those who would excuse this
sin and those who would build a false
system of tolerance upon it. in which
men are excused and even cared for in
their excuses by law, as does this deliv-
erance from Christ to the pharisee and
the woman. There is no common ground
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
snuggler. 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. a working
woman, reused to indignation by the
maudlin sympathy Of these men for her
disreputable sisters, wrote a 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
fr, fIa ~ -&@ e