And yet, from the swearing and blasphemy with which our land is cursed, one would think there were some great advantage to be reaped from the practice. There is to-day in all our land no more prevalent custom, and no more God-defying abomination, than profane swearing. You can hardly walk our streets five minutes without having your ears stung and your sensibilities shocked. The drayman swearing at his horse; the tinman at his solder; the sewing-girl imprecating her tangled thread; the bricklayer cursing at his trowel; the carpenter at his plane; the sailor at the tackling; the merchant at the customer; the customer at the merchant; the printer at the miserable proofsheet; the accountant at the troublesome line of figures;--swearing in the cellar and in the loft, before the counter and behind the counter, in the shop and on the street, in low saloon and fashionable bar-room. Children swear, men swear, ladies (!) swear. Profanity from the lowest haunt calling upon the Almighty, to the fashionable "O Lord!" of the glittering drawing-room. This whole country is blasted with the evil. Coming from the West, a gentleman sat behind two persons conversing. Profanities were so frequent in the conversation of the two persons in front, that the gentleman behind took out his pencil and paper and made a record. The profanities filled several sheets in the course of two days, at the close of which time the gentleman handed the manuscript to the persons conversing. The men said: "Is it possible that we have uttered so many profanities in the course of two days?" The gentleman said: "Yes."--"Then," said one of the men, "I shall never swear again." I make no abstract discussion. I hate abstractions. I had rather come right out and have a talk with you about a habit that you admit to be wrong. This habit has grown from the fact that the young often think it an evidence of manliness. There are thousands of boys and youth who indulge in it. I hear children along the street, but just able to walk, practising this iniquity. They cannot talk straight, but they get enough distinctness to let you know that they are damning their own souls and the souls of others. Oh! it is horrible to see a little child, the first time it lifts its feet to walk, set them down on the burning pavement of hell! Between sixteen and twenty years of age there is apt to come a time when a young man is as much ashamed of not being able to deliver an oath as he is of the dizziness that comes from his first cigar. He has his hat and coat and boots of the right pattern, and there is but one thing more now to bring him into _fashion_, and that is a capacity to swear.