Year: 1879

If any clergyman is at a loss to find a text
| for to-mOrrows sermon we can suggest one


or two which will strike home to his hearers


consciences, business and homes as directly


as any dogma OF doctrine. One is the fact


brought to light in the Identification Of the
murdered girl found i'll trunk at Lynn, that
between six and seven hundred women, both
single and married, were now missing from
their homes in Boston and ncighboring towns,
of whom their families had no trace, and


who (by the inquiries made concerning this
body were evidently supposed to have be-
| taken themselves to life of shame. Another Is
| the statement made by witness in the infamous
trial going on at Washington, that the Capt.
| tol was perpetually, openly besicged by women
of the worst class. The third is in the Tai
mage trial. Whether Mr. Talmage be guilty


or not of the charges laid against him we do
not know or care-it really matters very little


to the public. But the manner in which the
trial is conducted matters a great deal. When
men of God, teachers in holy things, find only


material for testing and scnSeless laughter i'll


the possibility that one of their number is


dishonest and a liar the banner of Christ


drags in the dust from the hands of those


sworn to uphold it.


We should be glad if earnest. thinking men


who hold the place of religious teachers would


ask themselves why these things are. A


generation ago, no such exhibition as that of


Mr.. Talmage's trial would have been possible


in New York, simply because public opinion


would have been against it. No man would


have been fool enough to struggle against


the poWerful current of decency and rever-


ence in the religious world. Our middle


aged readers will remember, too, the shudder


of horror which passed over the country at


the mysterious disappearance of "the pretty
| cigar-glrlp in this city. about which Poe
| wrote one of his strongest papers. Now six
hundred women disappear from one city, and


the fact only is made known by chance.


Is Virtue driven from the tield9 Has Vice
| wont There are hints of an existing condition


of affairs in this country, given in recent rev.
| elations, which equal in immortality the state
| of Rome in the later days of the Empire, OF


Paris before the fall of the BourbOns. Yet
the mass of the people, we contend, are de
cent are God-fearing; the instinct of the


American woman is to be modest and pure.
| Human nature Is 10 coarser or less reyerent
| than in the days of our Grandfathers. Our
| literature is purer than 1T was then; there are
| a thousand avenues into which the human
mind can turn-science, art, knowledge of every
| kind-to divert it from gross animal passions.


Why do these passions then dominate our social
| life. ike the seven devils who found the
| house swept and garnished, and entered in to
take possession We believe one reason to
be that the barriers are lowered in domestic
| life to allow them to come in. Matters are
discussed in the presence OF young girls
| which once matrons bushed to mention. There
is familiarity with vice, an acceptance of
il "A n matter of course, shown IN our news
papers, in our ordinary talk, III our pull
pits. which debases the minds of the young.
The very air is poisoned i'll which our chill
dren live. No legislation. no single reform
| can touch this disease any more than it could


cure the malaria which Stays its victims by
the thousand Ii is for each family, each
clergyman, each mother to clean and sweeten


their own household.