Searchlights on Health/Startling Sins

STARTLING SINS.

1. NAMELESS CRIMES.&mdash;The nameless crimes identified with the hushed-up Sodomite cases; the revolting condition of the school of Sodomy; the revelations of the Divorce Court concerning the condition of what is called national nobility, and upper classes, as well as the unclean spirit which attaches to "society papers," has revealed a condition which is perfectly disgusting.

2. UNFAITHFULNESS.&mdash;Unfaithfulness amongst husbands and wives in the upper classes is common and adultery rife everywhere; mistresses are kept in all directions; thousands of these rich men have at least two, and not seldom three establishments.

3. A FRIGHTFUL INCREASE.&mdash;Facts which have come to light during the past ten years show a frightful increase in every form of licentiousness; the widely extended area over which whoredom and degrading lust have thrown the glamor of their fascinating toils is simply appalling.

4. MORAL CARNAGE.&mdash;We speak against the fearful moral carnage; would to God that some unmistakable manifestation of the wrath of God should come in and put a stop to this huge seed-plot of national demoralization! We are reaping in this disgusting center the harvest of corruption which has come from the toleration and encouragements given by the legislature, the police, and the magistrates to immorality, vice and sin; the awful fact is that we are in the midst of the foul and foetid harvest of lust. Aided by some of the most exalted personages in the land, assisted by thousands of educated and wealthy whoremongers and adulterers, we are reaping also, in individual physical ugliness and deformity, that which has been sown; the puny, ill-formed and mentally weak youths and maidens, men and women, to be seen in large numbers in our principal towns and cities, represent the widespread nature of the curse, which has, in a marked manner, impaired the physique, the morality, and the intelligence of the nation.

5. DAILY PRESS.&mdash;The daily press has not had the moral courage to say one word; the quality of demoralizing novels such as have been produced from the impure brain and unclean imaginations; the subtle, clever and fascinating undermining of the white-winged angel of purity by modern sophists, whose purient and vicious volumes were written to throw a halo of charm and beauty about the brilliant courtesan and the splendid adulteress; the mixing up of lust and love; the making of corrupt passion to stand in the garb of a deep, lasting, and holy affection&mdash;these are some of the hidious seedlings which, hidden amid the glamor and fascination of the seeming "angel of light," have to so large an extent corrupted the morality of the country.

6. NIGHTLY EXHIBITIONS.&mdash;Some of you know what the nightly exhibitions in these garlanded temples of whorish incentive are. There is the variety theatre with its disgusting ballet dancing, and its shamelessly indecent photographs exhibited in every direction. What a clear gain to morality it would be if the accursed houses were burnt down, and forbidden by law ever to be re-built or re-opened; the whole scene is designed to act upon and stimulate the lusts and evil passions of corrupt men and women.

7. CONFIDENCE AND EXPOSURE.&mdash;I hear some of you say, cannot some influence be brought to bear upon this plague-spot? Will the legislature or congress do nothing? Is the law and moral right to continue to be trodden under foot? Are the magistrates and the police powerless? The truth is, the harlots and whoremongers are master of the situation; the moral sense of the legislators, the magistrates, and the police is so low that anything like confidence is at present out of the question.

8. THE SISTERHOOD OF SHAME AND DEATH.&mdash;It is enough to make angels weep to see a great mass of America's wealthy and better-class sons full of zeal and on fire with interest in the surging hundreds of the sisterhood of shame and death. Many of these men act as if they were&mdash;if they do not believe they are&mdash;dogs. No poor hunted dog in the streets was ever tracked by a yelping crowd of curs more than is the fresh girl or chance of a maid in the accursed streets of our large cities. Price is no object, nor parentage, nor home; it is the truth to affirm that hundreds and thousands of well-dressed and educated men come in order to the gratification of their lusts, and to this end they frequent this whole district; they have reached this stage, they are being burned up in this fire of lust; men of whom God says, "Having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease sin."

9. LAW MAKERS.&mdash;Now should any member of the legislature rise up and testify against this "earthly hell," and speak in defence of the moral manhood and womanhood of the nation, he would be greeted as a fanatic, and laughed down amid derisive cheers; such has been the experience again and again. Therefore attack this great stronghold which for the past thirty years has warred and is warring against our social manhood and womanhood, and constantly undermining the moral life of the nation; against this citadel of licentiousness, this metropolitan centre of crime, and vice, and sin, direct your full blast of righteous and manly indignation.

10. TEMPLES OF LUST.&mdash;Here stand the foul and splendid temples of lust, intemperance, and passion, into whose vortex tens of thousands of our sons and daughters are constantly being drawn. Let it be remembered that this whole area represents the most costly conditions, and proves beyond Question that an enormous proportion of the wealthy manhood of the nation, and we as citizens sustain, partake, and share in this carnival of death. Is it any wonder that the robust type of godly manhood which used to be found in the legislature is sadly wanting now, or that the wretched caricatures of manhood which find form and place in such papers as "Truth" and the "World" are accepted as representing "modern society?"

11. PURITANIC MANHOOD.&mdash;It is a melancholy fact that, by reason of uncleanness, we have almost lost regard for the type of puritanic manhood which in the past held aloft the standard of a chaste and holy life; such men in this day are spoken of as "too slow" as "weak-kneed," and "goody-goody" men. Let me recall that word, the fast and indecently-dressed "things," the animals of easy virtue, the "respectable" courtesans that flirt, chaff, gamble, and waltz with well-known high-class licentious lepers&mdash;such is the ideal of womanhood which a large proportion of our large city society accepts, fawns upon, and favors.

12. SHAMEFUL CONDITIONS.&mdash;Perhaps one of the most inhuman and shameful conditions of modern fashionable society, both in England and America, is that which wealthy men and women who are married destroy their own children in the embryo stage of being, and become murderers thereby. This is done to prevent what should become one of our chief glories, viz., large and well-developed home and family life.