Year: 1859

| ly loves pure and good life will avoid o
temptation as he would the sin TO which it
would lead him. can have but little chari-
ty for those who apologize for their frequent
falls from virtue by charging the blame up.
on the power of temptation, because temp
tation and opportunity come to them un-
sought no oftener than to others. 1t is
the man who loves vice, and delights irr
temptation, who is subject to their power.
have no faith in the reformation of a
drunkard who carelessly passes his accus-
toned tippling-shop, & carelessly looks in.


We are to avoid temptation because it is
only as vice is gloriied and its charms ex-
alted by the power of Imagination that it
appears charming and attractive to US. A
vision of naked vice, of whatsoever sort, is
vision of deformity. There are thousands
among those who delight in the excitements
of temptation, voluntarily sought, who
would shrink with horror and disgust from
a sndden Introduction to the presence of a
vice toward which they have been attracted
from a distance. There is no beauty in
beastlineSs, save that which an excited i'm
agination lends to it. 1t is by no inherent
charm that it draws men and women to-
ward it. 1t is as low and loathsome as
the serpent around whose evil eyes the
poor bird lutters, until it drops, a victim
to the fangS that await its certain coming.


have said thus much generally Of the
sins Of the imagination, aware that my re-
marks apply mainly to one variety of temp
tations, the most dangerous and the most
seductive Of all. There is nothing charm
ing in the thought of murder, in the con-
temptation OF great revenge in theft,
in the majority of crimes. Imagination has
no sophistry by which such crimes may be
justified, and no power to wrap them in on
atmosphere of beauty The sins of the
imagination are mainly those which con-
template the illicit indulgence of natural
and normal passions and appetites, the
temptations to which come in upons the
lines Of legitimate aud heaven-ordained
sympathes. 1t is among the meshes of
that which is legitimate and that which is
unforbidden-that the moral sense becomes
involved and moral purity is compromised.
1t is because men and women are led out
into the field of temptation by some of the
sweetest and strongest sympathes of their
natures that they feel no alarm and appre-
bend no danger. 1t is because they enter
tain no design to sin that they linger there
without fear. Oh if this imaginary world
of sin could be unveiled-ths world into
which the multitude go unknown and un-
suspected-to dream of delights unhallow-
ed by relations that may only give them
license-how would it be red with the blush
of shame


This world of sense balt by the imagi-
nation-how fair and foul it is Like
fairy island in the sea of life, it smiles in
sunlight and sleeps in green, known of the
world not by communion of knowledge,
but by personal, secret discovery The
waves Of every ocean kiss its feet. The
airs of every cline play among its trees,
and tire with the voluptuous music which
they bear. Flowers bend idly to the fall
Of fountains, beautiful forms are wreath
ing their white arms, and calling for COM
panionship Out toward this charmed is
land, by day and by night, a million shall
lops push unseen of each other, and of the
world of real life left behind, for revelry
and reward The single sailors never meet
each other; they tread the same paths un-
known of each other; they come back, and
no one asks where they have been. Again
and again is the visit repeated, with no ab-
solutely vicious intention, yet not without
gathering the taint of vice. If Gods light
could shine upon this crowded sea, and dis.
cover the secrets of the island which it in
vests, what shameful retreats and encount-
ers should we witnesS-fathers, mothers,
maidens, men-chiIdren even, whom we had
deemed as pure as Snow-fying with gull
ty eyes and white lips to hide themselves
from a great disgrace


There is vice enough in the world of ac-
tual life, and it is there that we look for it;
but there is more in that other world of
Imagination that we do not see-vice that
poisons, vice that kills, vice that makes
whited sepulcherS Of temples that are deem
ed pure, even by multtudes Of their tenants.
Let none esteem themselves blameleSs or
pure who willingly and gladly seek in this
world of Imagination for excitements =
That remarkable poem of Margaret Fuller,
which ascribes an indelible faint to the
maiden who only dreams of her lover an
unmaidenly dream, has fearful but entire
ly legitimate significance 1t is forbidden
realm, where pure feet never wander; and
all who would remain pure must forever
avoid it. 1t is the haunt of devils and
damned spirits. It's foul air poisons man
hood and Shrivcs womanhood, even if it
never be left behind in an advance to the
overt sin which lies beyond it.


The pitcher that goes often to the well
gets broken at last. presume that there
is not one licentious man or ruined woman
In one hundred whose way to pardition did
not lie directly through this forbidden Geld
of Imagination. Into that field they went,
and went again, till, weakened by the pois-
onous atmosphere, and grown morbid in
their love of sin, and developed in all their
tendencies to sensuality, and famiiarzed
with the thought of vice, they fell, with
neither the disposition nor the power ito
rise again. 1t is in this field that Satan
wins all his victories. 1t is here that he
is transformed into an angel of light 1t
is on this debatable ground, half way be-
tween vice and virtue, whittier the silly
multitude resort for dreams of that which
they may not enjoy, that the question of
personal perdition is settled. A pure soul
sternly standing on the ground of virtue,
or q pure soul standing Immediately in the
nracanca Of vioa not Onpa in ten thOuSand