The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1898-09-21

The Bible all afiame with denunciation
against an impure life, but many
of the American ministry uttering not
one point-blank word against this in
iquity lest some old libertine throw up
his church pew. Machinery organized
in all the cities of the United States
and Canada by which to put yearly
in the grinding-mill of this iniquity
thousands of the unsuspecting of the
country farm-houses, one procuress
confessing in the courts that she had
supplied the internal market with $50
victims in six months. Ohl for 500
newspapers in America to swing open
the door of this lazar-house of social
corruption! Exposure must come be-
fore extirpation.
While the city van carries the scum
of this sin from the prison to the police
court morning by morning, it is full
time, if we do not want high American
life to become like that of the court of
Louis XIV, to put millionaire Lotharios
and the Pompadours of your brown
stone palaces into van of popular in
dignation, and drive them out of re-
spectacle associations. What prospect
of social publication can there be as
long as at summer watering places it
is usual to see young woman of ex-
cellent rearing stand and simper and
giggle and roll up her eyes sideways
before one of those first-class satyrs of
fashionable life, and on the ballroom
floor join him in the dance, the mater
nal chaperon meanwhile beaming from
the window on the scene? Matches
are made in Heaven, they say. Not
such matches; for the birthstone indi-
Gates the opposite region.
The evil is overshadowing all our cit
les. BY some these immoralities are
called peccadilloes, gallantries, eccen-
tricities, and are relegated to the
realms of jocularity, and few efforts
are being made against them. God
bless the "White Cross" movement, as
it is called-an organization making a
mighty assault on this evil God for
ward the tracts on this subject distrib-
uted by the religious tract societies of
the land! God help parents in the
great work they are doing, in trying to
start their children with pure prin-
ciples God help all legislators in their
attempt to prohibit this crime!
But is this all? Then it is only a
question of time when the last vestige
of purity and home will vanish out of
sight. Human arms, human pens, hui
man voices, human talents are not suf-
ficient. begin to look up. listen for
artillery rumbling down the sapphire
boulevards of Heaven. watch to see if
in the morning light there be not the
flash of descending scimitars. Oh, for
God! Does it not seem time for his
appearance? Is it not time for all
hands to cry out, "Let God arise, and
let his enemies be scattered?"
Not only are the affairs of this world
so a-twist, a-jangle and racked, that
there seems a need of the divine ap-
pearance, but there is another reason.
Have you ever noticed that in the his
tory of this planet God turns a leaf
about every 1000 years? God turned a
leaf, and this world was fitted for hui
man residence. About 1000 more years
passed along and God turned another
leaf, and it was the deluge. About 1000
more years passed on, and it was the
nativity. Almost 1000 more years
passed by, and he will probably soon
turn another leaf. What 1t shall be |
cannot say. 1t may be the demolition
OF all these monstrosities of turpitude,
and the establishment of righteous
ness in all the earth. He can do it,
and he will do it. am as confident as
if it were already accomplished. How
easily he can do it, my text suggests.
1t does not ask God to hurl great
thunderbolt of his power, but just to
rise from the throne on which he sits.
Only that will be necessary. "Let God
arise!"
1t will be no exertion of omnipo-
tence. 1t will be no bending or brac-
ing for a mighty lift. 1t will be no
sending down the sky of the white
horse cavalry of Heaven or rumbling
war chariots. He will only rise. Now
he is sitting in the majesty and pa
tience of his reign, He is from his
throne watching the mastering of all
the forces of blasphemy and drunken
ness and impurity and fraud and Sab
bath-breaking, and when they have
| done their worst, and are most surely
! organized, he will bestir himself and
say: "My enemies have denied me long
enough, and their cup of iniquity is
full. l have given them all opportunity
for repentance. This dispensation of
patience is ended, and the faith of the
good shall be tried no longer" And
now God begins to rise, and what
mountains give way under his right
foot know not; but, standing in the
full radiance and grandeur of his ma
ture, he looks this way and that, and
how his enemies are scattered! Bias
phemers, white and dumb, reel down
to their doom; and those who have
trafficked in that which destroys the
bodies and souls of men and families
will fly with cut foot on the down
grade of broken decanters; and the
polluters of society, that did their bad
work with large fortunes and high So
cial sphere, will overtake in their de-
scent the degraded rabble of under
ground city life, as they tumble over
the eternal precipices; and the world
shall be left clear and clean for the
friends of humanity and the worship
ers of Almighty God. The last thorn
plueked off, the world will be left a
blooming rose on the bosom of that
Christ who came to gardenize 1t. The
earth that stood snarling with it's