The Abominations of Modern SocietyTalmage, T. De Witt (Thomas De Witt)
Religion
The Abominations of Modern Society
Talmage, T. De Witt (Thomas De Witt)
Conduct of life
of dollars; and so paradise will be wholly regained at the end of the
tenth year."
There is more reason in this than in many of the plans proposed; but
mechanical forces can never recreate the world. I shall take no shares
in the large company that is proposed; my faith is that Christianity
will yet make the worst street of our cities better than the best
street now is.
Archimedes consumed the enemies of Syracuse by a great sun-glass. As
the ships came up the harbor, the sun's rays were concentrated upon
them: now the sails are wings of fire; the masts fall, and the vessels
sink. So, by the great sun-glass of the Gospel, the rays of heaven
will be concentred upon all the filth and unchastity and crime of our
great towns, and under the heat they will blaze and expire. When the
day comes that I have shown will come, suppose you that there will
be any midnight brawls? any shivering mendicants, kicked off from the
marble steps? any droves of unwashed, uncombed, unfed children? any
blasphemers in the street? any staggering past of inebriates? No! No
wine-cellars. No lager-beer saloons. No distilleries where they make
the XXX. No bloated cheeks. No blood-shot eyes. No fist-battered
foreheads. The grandchildren of that woman who now walks up the street
with a curse, as the boys stone her, will be philanthropists, and heal
the sick, and manage great commercial enterprises.
When our cities are so raised, we shall have a different style of
municipal government. The great question, in regard to the execution
of the law, now is: "What is popular?" Our city governments
slumber--great carcasses of insufficiency, sending up their stench
into the nostrils of high heaven, while there are thousands of
gambling-houses, and drinking-saloons, and more places of damnable
lust than the decency of the country has time to count. Do you tell me
that the authorities do not know it? They do know it. All the police
know it. The sheriff and his deputies know it. The aldermen know it.
The mayors know it. Everybody who keeps his eyes and ears open knows
it. In the name of God I impeach the municipal authorities of many of
our cities, that they neglect to execute the law. You cannot charge
it upon any one party. Within the past few years both parties, and
all kinds of parties, have been in power; but the work has never been
done. You have but to pass the City Hall, or look in upon the rooms of
some of our city officials, to see to what sort of men our cities have
been abandoned. Look at the swearing, bloated, sensual wretches who
stand on the outside of the New York City Hall, picking their teeth,
waiting for some crumbs of emolument to fall at their feet; and then
tell me how far it is from New York to Sodom. Who are those wretched
women sent up in the city van to the police-court, apprehended for
drunkenness? They will be locked up in jail; but what will be done
with the groggeries that made them drunk? Who are these men in the
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