PREVALENT
SOCIAL SIJSTB ;
THEIR CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES:
I
A SERMON FOR THE TIMES.
PREACHER ON SUNDAY, 11TH FEB., 1866, IN MULBERRY STREET
M. E. CIIFRCII, MACON, OA.
BY EDWARD II. MYERS, TAD.
PUBLISHER BY REQUEST.
MACON, GEORGIA:
J. W. BURKE r CO., STATIONERS, PRINTERS AND BINDERS,
I860.
PREVALENT
SOCIAL SINS ;
THEIR CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES:
1 SERMON FOR THE TIMES.
PREACHED ON SUNDAY, 11TH FEB., 1866, IN MULBERRY STREET
M. E. CHURCH, MACON, GA.
BY EDWARD II. MYERS, D.IX
PUBLISHED BY REQUEST.
MACON, GEORGIA:
J. W. BURKE & CO., STATIONERS, PRINTERS AND BINDERS.
1866.
DEDICATORY.
Yielding to the request, conveyed in the communication appended, the
Discourse that follows—prepared only for delivery, not for the press—is put
into print, and respectfully dedicated
TO PARENTS,
By a father who feels that the highest of all human responsibilities is that
involved in the parental relation; and
TO THE YOUNG AND RISING GENERATION,
By one whose interest in their welfare is all the deeper, because his own
children are among that number; and with the earnest prayer that the
honest truths here uttered may prove to them a warning against some of
*
the temptations that beset their path in life.
Macon, Feb. 15th. E. H. M.
Macon, Ga., Feb. 12th, 1866.
Rev. E. H. Myers, D. D.:
Dear Sir and Brother™-The deep interest felt on yesterday, under the de¬
livery of your discourse, by the large audience at Mulberry Street Methodist
Church, has prompted the undersigned, members of the church and congre¬
gation, to request of you a copy for publication.
It is hoped that the sentiments and principles of the discourse, if more
widely disseminated, will contribute much to correct prevailing evils, and to
stimulate to better living.
Jos. S. Key,
J. M. Bonnell,
Ed. Saulsbtjry,
Jambs I. Snider,
James Jackson,
Jno. B. Cobb,
Emory Winship,
N. K. Barnum,
W. R. Rogers,
B. A. Wise,
Wm. D. Williams,
Geo. W. Hardie,
Peter Solomon,
B. B. Lewis,
J. II. Roberts,
Wm. Henry Ross,
E. Kirtland,
W. C. Singleton.
HYMN.
I.
Arise, my tend'rest thoughts, arise;
To torrents melt, my streaming eyes,
And thou, my heart, with anguish feel
Those evils which thou canst not heal.
II.
See human nature sunk in shame ;
See scandals poured on Jesus' name ;
The Father wounded through the Son,
The world abused, the soul undone.
III.
See the short course of vain delight
Closing in everlasting night—
In flames, that no abatement know,
Though briny tears for ever flow.
IT.
My God, I feel the mournful scene;
My bowels yearn o'er dying men ;
And fain my pity would reclaim,
And snatch the firebrands from the flame.
V.
Butf'feeble my compassion proves,
And can but weep where most it loves;
Thine own all-saving arm employ,
And turn these drops of grief to joy.
SERMON.
"He that pursueth evil, pursueth it to his own death."—Prov. xi, latter
clause of verse 19.
Evil and death, what are they? Evil, when spoken of -as
an object of choice, is bat another name for sin. Sin is the
transgression of the law of God. That law is the rule of
duty. It defines the obligations arising from our relations
to nature, to man and to God—to the creature and to the
Creator who has established these relations and imposed,
these obligations. The law, therefore, is but an expression
of the • mind of God—an exposition of His pre-arranged
method of keeping man in harmony with the established or¬
der of the universe. This law was first written in the book
of Nature, but being obscured and almost obliterated by
transgressors, it has been more directly and intelligibly re¬
iterated in the Divine Revelation. There, it is condensed
into the precept, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with
all thy heart and soul and mind—and thy neighbor as thy¬
self.
To pursue evil—to sin—is to live in the wilful and habit¬
ual violation of this precept. An evil life is one not regu¬
lated by God's righteous laws—laws by which he defines the
duties involved in the relations He has fixed between man ]
and man—between man and the entire creation, and be¬
tween the race and individuals of the race and the Creator
himself. A man's life, therefore, is evil when he violates
these laws:— « ^
1. By misusing his natural endowments, and the material
blessings designed for their preservation and development.
Thus, he may abuse his body, his mind, or his substance.
Adventitious circumstances may enhance his sin. If he do
not employ his talents, his wealth, his manhood; if he do
6
not so use the advantages conferred by competence and hon¬
orable position and happy social relations, or other desirable
"worldly good, according to well defined laws established in
the natural, social and moral world by God himself, all these
intended blessings became the occasion of sin—and his life
is evil, because he has misused or abused the means afforded
him of being useful and good and happy.
2. He pursues evil, whose life is not regulated by God's
law, as to the duties growing out of his relations to his fel¬
low-men. In these relations he must be governed by the
Decalogue, that comprehensive code, which sums up all
relative duty, or he is a sinner, pursuing evil.
3. An evil life is one, in which are neglected the highest
and most sacred duties, arising from our relations to God,
the Creator, the Preserver, the Governor, the Father, the
Redeemer. It is evil, indeed, for the creature to forget the
Creator—for the subject to scorn the Sovereign—for the de¬
pendent to insult the Preserver—for the condemned yet ran¬
somed criminal to despise his Saviour—for the son to dishon¬
or his Father.
And yet, my dear hearers, such are the sins which I
fear I must charge upon many of you. Your life is evil,
whatever its human graces and beauties, if it has not re¬
ceived Christ into it; for every life is evil, that grows not
out of the living vine—which is not a life of faith in the
Son of God.
But there is little need of dwelling on definitions, that we
may ascertain whether or not our lives are good or evil.
The Lawgiver has erected a tribunal in our own hearts, and.
given authority to an unimpeachable judge within us, to ^
pass sentence of condemnation upon our evil lives—a sen¬
tence which one day, amid the thunders of judgment, He
will confirm. Conscience—unless the voice of that faithful
monitor has been stifled—teaches you whethert>r not you are
sinners against God. It arraigns you and brings you to the
bar of His law and condemns you, many times, when your
remorse is hid beneath a smooth smile and a placid brow.
Often, when amid the gay crowd of pleasure worshipers you
7
seem overflowing with joy, and engage in jest and song, and
appear to have banished every serious thought of Gpd and
death—often, even then, your soul is stung by the rebukes,
and harrassed by the remonstrances of that voice of Omni¬
science speaking to your inner being. If you are the sin¬
ners I suppose myself now addressing, that voice has al¬
ready adjudged you to be such, and has written the verdict
in your soul, and it only remains for God himself to pass the
final sentence, and to deliver you over to Death.
Yes, to Death! ! For he who pursues sin, finds death.—
The wages of sin is death.
And here I need not dwell on the body's death. I need
not pause to say that many forms of sin abridge human life
—that sin has engineered a short track fr.om the cradle to
the grave, and made the way monumental with terrible
catastrophes. Shocking as it might be to you to show you,
that you have embarked on a train that is tearing along with
you at lightning speed to the slime and putrefaction of the
charnel house, I must declare that there is a horror before you
more terrible still—the death in life of a soul, forsaken by
the Spirit of grace. For there may be a death before death
—a dead soul in a living body.
"It is not all of life to live." There may be death to hon¬
or, to usefulness, to social enjoyments—death to all the pleas¬
ures of the intellect—to the charms of family and friends and
home—to every solace of memory as to the past, and of hope
as to the future. Looking backward, the wretched man may
see how he has forfeited peace and joy and hope and love
and faith—how he has refused the offer of fellowship with
angels—of communion with the Spirit—of adoption by the
Father—of heirship with Christ—of victory oyer sin—of
triumph over death, and all the glories of eternal blessed¬
ness. Looking forward, he sees only the blackness of dark¬
ness; and already a ray less night has settled upon his help¬
less and despairing spirit, and he now moves among his fel¬
lows, that most marvellous and most miserable of intelligent
creatures—a man in life, a moral monster, who, before the
8
final sentence, lias committed his soul to the grave of perdi-'
tion, qnd has of choice consented to his own eternal damna¬
tion.
And that dread perdition—the soul's second death—the
death that never dies—who can depict its horrors! Memo¬
ry, no longer a traitor to its trusts, unrolls the life scroll, and
every evil deed done, and every good abused, is there, an
ever present witness of his guilt. Passions, no more to be
appeased by sensual gratification, burn in his bosom an un¬
quenchable fire. Conscience, awakened from her long slum¬
ber never to sleep again, has transfused itself, as a new and
terrible life, through his entire being, and he feels its presence
in every fibre of his guilty spirit as an intolerable agony; and
God, whom he refused to acknowledge or to serve as Lord,
or to honor as a Father—or to believe in as a Saviour—or
to supplicate as a Comforter, stands now and forever revealed
to the wretched criminal, in His transcendent perfections, in
His wonderful goodness, in His awful attributes, as the al¬
mighty Sovereign and the infallible Judge, vindicating the
majesty of His insulted law, and the equity of His adminis¬
tration, by an unimpeachably righteous award of the retri¬
butions of eternity. And thus the guilty sinner now reaps
the reward of his sins. And this is eternal death!
Notwithstanding this death is before you, you still pursue
evil. Pursue it! Here is the idea of a purpose and an en¬
deavor to overtake what would elude you or escape from
you. Evil flees from you—you follow it, pursue it, hunt it
down, secure it. This indicates a mind intent on its object,
a will resolved, an effort put forth. This fact in your life
contradicts the soothing fallacy, that man drifts down the
current of vice by the easy flow of nature and circum¬
stances—his own purpose not concurring in the dangerous
advance, and his progress not accelerated by exertion on his
own part. My friends, yield to no such delusion. You are
sinners, not because you cannot help it, but because you do
not try to help it. On the contrary, all your powers—intel¬
lect, will, capability, are accomplices with a fallen nature in
9
the work of evil. You pursue sin greedily with all the en¬
ergy of your nature, notwithstanding that God has merci¬
fully made the pursuit difficult, by heaping up obstructions
in your path. By rebuke and warning, by instruction and
exhortation, by sermons, by prayers, by the monitions of
conscience and the whispers of the Spirit, he has sought to
arrest your steps. Every blush of shame for sin, that has
mantled your cheek ; every shock your soul has received in
the presence of your own evil work and at sight of its mis¬
erable results; every remorseful feeling, that has embittered
your days and condemned you to sleepless nights; every
vision of a dreadful future; every wrecked soul you have
passed in life's voyage; every finger board on your journey,
pointing the way to poverty and tears, to degradation and
wretchedness—every one of these has been an obstacle laid
across your path, by God himself, to arrest your downward
steps—and yet you are pursuing evil.
OI beneficent Ruler, help thy servant to-day, to build up
one more, the final obstruction, between these guilty souls
and death, that their pursuit of evil may be arrested hence¬
forth and forever.
I propose 1st, to seek for the cause of the alarming preva¬
lence of sin, especially of the sin sanctioned in respect¬
able society; and 2ndly, to exhibit, by various illustrations,
two or three from actual life, some of their deplorable results.
I. Why is it that sin so alarmingly prevails, over all the
teachings of God's word, even among those, from whose in¬
struction and training and antecedents generally, we should
expect a virtuous life ?
1. Let me say, first of all, public opinion is depraved. Its
standard of right is low and lowering. It has no rebuke for
many vices—nay, for many crimes. Other vices it encour¬
ages, because they are fascinating; others, again, are popu¬
lar because there is money in them. It administers its repro¬
bation against offender^, irregularly and unequally, accor¬
ding to their class. The criminal who has wealth and
friends is rarely punished, often not even condemned, while
B
10
the cry is raised against the poor wretch who has neither—
"away with him." Public opinion not only screens the
guilty from the condemnation of law and the sword of jus¬
tice, but it often elevates them to place and to power.
Should an honest legislator seek to arm the law with author¬
ity to suppress the schools of vice and to close the theatres
of temptation, that dot our thoroughfares, stand masked at
our street corners, or hide themselves in secret haunts or
along blind alleys, public opinion will not sustain his efforts.
Should a God-fearing magistrate attempt to execute the in¬
adequate penalties now affixed to crime^ the wicked combine
against him and defeat his efforts to maintain good order.—
Public opinion is not arrayed on the side of right—but the
vicious classes and their sympathisers hold the balance of
of power, and they make and unmake legislators and rulers
at will, whenever they fell themselves threatened or their
craft to be in danger—and .the more virtuous classes quietly
resign themselves into the hands of these Philistines. I
speak as unto wise men—judge ye what I say.
2. Secondly—there is a school in society itself which
prepares its constituent members only for the pursuit of sin,
and for the death which follows. It is that of the gay and
godless world of pleasure-hunters, against which the pulpit
warns in vain. The wise man says, "There is a way that
seemeth right unto man, but the end thereof are the ways of
death."' The way of the giddy throng whose highest idea
of happiness is, that it is social pleasure, seems right -to these
deluded phantom worshippers; but the sad truth is, that
they are crowding the way to death, and yet they will not
be warned. Youth, they cry, demands the exhiliration of
pleasure. Let young blood flow joyously—there is time
enough in sluggish age for sober thought and for the austeri¬
ties, of life. Society, exalted to a divinity, as they assert has
her laws, and they must be obeyed by all who expect her
favor; and so the young are trained for her service. She
demands that they be educated in the high arts of attracting
notice and of gaining admiration. Music and poesy are
11
perverted to her use. But if these are her highest endow¬
ments, her thief graces are fawning, flattery, coquetry, con¬
quest, frivolous small talk, idle gossip, extravagant parade,'
splendid equipage, luxurious living, fashionable personal
adornment, and magnificent entertainments. To excel in
these is to reach the acme of the dignities and honors of»
society; and her votaries—too soon, alas! to become her
victims—are set upon a course of education to attain to this
fictitious excellence. Dissolve what is called fashionable
society, and leave only the Ghristian graces upon earth, and
all these forms of enervating and soul-enthralling life would
soon disappear. We must grant that society has some con¬
stituents better than these we have mentioned^ but these
are the most popular elements of fashionable society, even
at its lowest range; and being the elements most attractive
to youth, they are also those most damaging to persons of
unformed or of feeble principles. Hence the ruin that so
often overtakes the young man or the young woman who
has entered this most dangerous school—fashionable society.
IIow many a garlanded victim have you seen led to her
altays, amid the plaudits of adoring worshippers, whose
career has been brilliant, but whose end has been a terrible
protest against her mischievous influence? How many are
there who, in her service, have been made drunk by flattery,
andj in their vanity and pride and supposed supremacy,
have come to scorn that amenability to public opinion
governing ordinary mortals, and have in their fast living
advanced to the brink of crime, themselves perhaps escaping,
but not their reputation? How many who, too weak to
resist the overpowering currents that in these seas threaten
shipwreck to every navigator, have run a course of sin and
folly, and in the end been cast out by those who have rdined
them—miserable wrecks of humanity ? For this ruin, you
have most to thank a pleasure-loving, God-forgetting society,
whose very atmosphere is poison to the incautious young.
, 3. But we have not yet reached the seat of the sin. whose
causes we are trying to ascertain. Behind society we find
12
the family and the individual sinner, and with them the
corruption begins. They make society, and it is made in
their own likeness.
We call ourselves a Christian people; and, indeed, there
are true Christian families among us. Leaving these out
of view, let us find the standard type of the most respect-»
able families in this reputed Christian land.
In the head of the family you shall find a m&n of whom
all men speak well. He lends dignity to bis calling, however
humble in itself, by his industry and integrity. He is hon¬
orable, enterprising, energetic, and, what the world prizes
most, successful. Absorbed in his pursuits, one triumph
achieved only paves the way to another, and stimulates to
higher effort. He prospers. ^Wealth and honor, with all
their fruits, accumulate about him. Thus, years pass away,
and his children grow up, basking in the sunshine of his
prosperity—and, old age finds him (must we say it ?) only
a sinner, having pursued evil all his days.
I need draw no dark, picture now to show you, that this
prosperous man of the world has prepared himself not for
life, but for death. He is not living by God's method. Im¬
mersed in business, he has been perpetually striving for more
and more of this world's good, making his calculations for
to-morrow—not for eternity-—increasingly disinclined to
religion, finding forever fresh excuses for neglecting it,
shaking off all convictions of sin, deaf to all messages of
mercy, quenching the Spirit, and turning to his idols—just
as though there were no life after death. I shall not deny
his charitable deeds—his social virtues; but self and family,
friends and society, not God, are the source of their inspira¬
tion—the end to which he refers all his actions. A professed
believer in the Christian religion—an attendant upon its ser¬
vices—a liberal supporter of its institutions—with all this,
his life gives no answer to the high claims it makes upon
him. His influence is not given to the church, its sacra¬
ments have no significancy in his life of unbelief, and in his
household God's word does not assert dominion. Ho family
13
altar is there—prayer is unknown—and all the precepts of
life taught there are drawn from the code of honor, or of
worldly prudence, not founded on the highest and most
imperative of all the grounds of obedience—duty to God.
In such a household, the children most generally grow up
fully sensible of their father's position ; and released by his
wehlfh from the necessity of labor, and liberally supplied
with the means of self-indulgence, they acquire his worldly
spirit without copying what is commendable in his example.
• While he is engrossed in business and negligent in discipline,
they contract vices which he abhors. The son discards even
the feeble belief of the father in the religion which he so
neglects; and with it, rids himself of those restraining influ¬
ences that belief has exercised over the father's decorous
life; and peradventure that son is found foremost in the
dissolute throng, who are pursuing evil unto death. The
father has pursued it covertly, under specious names that
gave it respectability ; while the son has uncovered the game
and unblushingly hunts it down in the face of day, and before
the gaze of men.
And, oh! my friends, to what a dreadful inheritance of
evil teaching and ruinous example must those children
have been born, where the irreligious mother's influence is
added to that of an ungodly father. Better, my country¬
women, that the children should lie down for the long sleep
in their sweet innocence, than that their destiny should be
entrusted to a woman of the world—an aspirant to the
honors of fashionable society—a pleasure-hunter—vain,
' proud, ambitious, luxurious—a marriage-broker for her
daughters—a wife encouraging her husband's worldliness,
sympathizing in his mammon worship, perhaps making it
necessary by her extravagant arts—a mother, sowing the
seeds of death, instead of implanting the germ of life, in the
minds and hearts of the young immortals committed to her
guidance—a mother, leading her sons and daughters to the
altar of sacrifice—passing them through the fires of Moloch
•—the author of their life—the author of their perdition.
14
I Lave but drawn the picture of thousands of families in
modern society—and because of such fathers and such moth¬
ers the land is filled with crime and groans in agony.
Let us for a moment contemplate the end of these most
respectable sinners—let Us see how in such cases, not of
open crime, but of forgetfulness of God and utter irreligiom
the pursuit and love of the world lead to death. «
j You may think it a small matter, my hearers, to postpone
i to future years the service of God, and to give yourself to
J business and to what you call innocent enjoyments, in the *
j belief that the time will come when your heart will break
in contrition—when, relaxing your hold upon the world,
you will sei^'e the cross. But project your thoughts into
those future years, and learn now what the end will most
probably be to you—as it has been to multitudes who have
thus lived and thus believed.
Let me picture your future. The time will come when the
energies of life are decaying—when they are toned down by
misfortunes, or disappointments, or even by success leaving
no more to strive after—or, it may be yet worse, by reaping a
harvest from the seed you have sown. You have not fol¬
lowed God's ways, but you have pursued evil, and sorrow
and remorse have overtaken you. You feel that the dream
of youth is vanished—that an entire life-time has been
wasted. Has not the time come, long since set, for yielding
to the claims of religion ? You have more leisure to think
of the future—of death, judgment, eternity. You can no
longer plead the press of business, or any of the many ex¬
cuses of youth and middle life, for neglecting religion. You
acknowledge to yourself that time is speeding away, and
your opportunities are curtailing. You often think soberly,
and seriously contemplate a change of life. You still wait
on the services of the sanctuary, and wonder why they make
so little impression upon you—now that you are willing to
be impressed; for you have emerged from that disturbing
atmosphere in which youthful passion and ambition invested
life, and now you see that it is naught without godliness—
15
and you would fain be drawn toward religion, as once you
were, and marvel that you are not. A new light has indeed
reached you, but it is not the light of that Spirit you so long
since grieved, nor of God's truth that you have neglected,
but of a sad experience of the vanity of earthly good. You
are not saved, because that Spirit so often driven from you
has left you to yourself, and you have lost the power of
motion toward God. You have pursued evil, and found this
moral death. You are now the fettered creature of your
own past life—you have reached the destiny you have been
preparing for yourself. Your moral character and your
principles of action have been moulded into so rigid a form,
by long habit, that to change them now would be scarce less
difficult than to re-create yourself—and you are left to wear
out your miserable existence, regretting the past, yet hope¬
less of the future! And now, the wretched victim of your
own past ungodliness and religious indifference, you sit in
God's temple, stand beside His altars, hear His word,
acknowledge its truth, feel a passing twinge of remorse for
wasted opportunities, and a momentary longing for the hopes
of a better life; but yet you never come nearer to salvation,
for want of power to break the fetters of habit, and to take
the initial steps towards a life that must be a complete coun¬
terpart and contradiction of all the past. At the very foot
of the throne of grace, with the words of promise sounding
in your ears, you resign yourself to despair, for yoy. can
make no effort to escape the inevitable end.
Such is the mournful condition of many of the most
respectable, and—except for their irreligion—the most exem¬
plary among us, who have passed middle life, in the ser¬
vice of the world.
And now the end draws nigh—the evening shadows fall
upon you-—your past joys are all dead—appetite is clogged,
desire surfeited, passion burned out, the world inspires only
disgust; nothing is left to live or hope for; and you hover
upon the confines of two worlds, with a hold upon neither;
dreading the swift coming end, yet allowing none to speak
16
to you of death; clinging to your mortal life with more than
mortal dread of parting with it. And when the final sum¬
mons comes, you will find that your gold has turned to ashes
in your grasp, that the laurels on your brow compose a
crown of thorns—that all your pleasures have gathered
round your dying bed, and stand there, like so many ghastly
skeletons, pointing with fleshless finger the way to outer and
unending darkness. At the last, you will have learned what
you now refuse to believe, that he that pursueth evil, pursu-
eth it to his own death.
4. I shall have done my work but imperfectly, were I to
fail to say that another cause of the prevalence of sin is to be
found in the delinquencies ot professing Christians—in their
neglect of personal duty and of family religion—in their
likeness to the world in character and principle and conduct.
Let me ask you, dear brethren, do you shun evil and pursue
righteousness? Is your life hid with Christ in God? Do
you cultivate heavenly aspirations? Do you never surren¬
der principle for worldly gain, or honor, or pleasure? Do
you do what seems duty at every cost of denial to nature, to
pride, to sloth, or to appetite ? Are you fruitful in good
works ? Do you prefer the house of God to the haunts of
mirth? His worship to the pleasures of the world? Is
your spirit pierced with sorrow at the prevailing ungodli¬
ness ? Are you seeking to make the world better by your
example? And is that example such as to show to these
respectable sinners around you, that their lives are full of
shortcomings ? Do you try to draw them to the cross ?
Again: have you dedicated your children to God, and are
you endeavoring to rear them in His service? Do you con¬
trol them, restrain them from evil? Do you neither teach
them nor permit them to learn that which endangers their
souls, and which must be unlearned, before they can be
Christians ? Do you neyer deck them with garlands, and
offer them upon the altar of wealth or vanity, of pleasure or
fashion? Is it your desire rather to see them Christians,
though "little and unknown, loved and prized by God
IT
alone," than that they should, as sinners, be crowned with
honor and burdened with wealth—to see them subjects of
God and heirs of heaven rather than monarchs among men ?
Is your house ordered by God's law? Is it a place of
prayer? Is your own spirit meek, patient, forbearing, long-
suffering? Do you bow submissively to God's providences?
Will the world be the better for your having lived in it ?
Or do I find to-day, not such Christians as I am asking
for, but rather, here in the temple of God, as readily as I
can find them in the marts of trade or in the haunts of
pleasure, the original of those pictures I have drawn of the
worldly minded leaders in society ? Let God be your judge.
I will not judge you.
II. Thus far, I have dealt only in generalities—but now I
proceed to particulars—to exhibit by a few illustrations some
of the fruits of this intense worldliness—to point to some in¬
stances where the pursuit of sin has wrought death.
I draw now a picture with its original in. every mer¬
cantile com munity.
A youth seeks employment in some subordinate position,
where, by diligence, he acquires business habits and ex¬
perience, gains the confidence of his employer, is implicitly
trusted, and, in short, has started in life most propitiously..
His prospects are bright, if he will but adhere to the right,
in which we may suppose he has been well instructed. But
he is not governed by moral principle; he falls into tempta¬
tion, and is led astray. Some youthful folly has overtaxed
his income—it may be fondness for dress and show, or a wish
to ape richer associates in fast living—it may be wine, it may
be woman, or it may be all these perverting influences com¬
bined that has exhausted his resources. To replenish his
purse and not expose his reckless life is now a hard problem
to solve; and there are many heart struggles before he has
secretly committed that act of theft or fraud, that stamps him
a defaulter and a criminal. He intends, however, to keep
his secret, and to rectify the wrong before his delinquencies
are discovered and his fair name is tarnished. Hence, he
o
18
looks around for some means of rapid acquisition, that he
may hide his guilt. And here comes the second step of
temptation and crime.
In every city there are temples of Fortune, with a regular
priesthood, who serve at her altar. They usually form a
community to themselves—men whose antecedents are
shrouded in mystery. By day, street-loungers in the garb
of gentlemen, they have no known employment—receive no
honest income or honorable wages; yet they flash in gold
and jewels, wear "purple and fine linen," drink the costli¬
est wines, eat the daintiest food. At night, you will find
them in some secluded apartment; and there will learn that
they are not without resources. You shall there find cards,
dice, counters, tables of curious construction—in short, an
abundance of mechanical contrivances, fit apparatus for rob¬
bing a victim, while he sits by consenting to the theft. The
popular voice, happily and justly, calls these hiding places
of systematic robbery, hells—and they are but ante-chambers
to the foul pit. And so might the same popular voice as
justly name the presiding geniuses of these midnight con¬
claves, devils; for they thrive not by the ruin of fortunes
merely, but by that of souls ; they rob young immortals of
their innocence—richer than the life's blood. Upon the altars
at which they minister have been laid the character and
reputation, the fortune and happiness and hope of many a
son and husband and father, whose ruin is that of a house¬
hold—and when the ruin of one is compassed, they turn
from him with insatiate greed to seek for other victims.
Such a victim—one prepared for the sacrifice—Is the
young man seeking to retrieve his fortunes and to save his
threatened reputation. Drawing again upon his employer's
cash for his first stakes, he commits himself to these high-
priests of infamy. It may be—for such is their policy often
—that they permit him at first to succeed at the gaming
table. He may, perchance, by a little venture, win—and so
be able to conceal his misdemeanors, and save himself from
exposure. But he has done so at a fearful cost. He has
19
learned that fraud sometimes is successful—that dishonesty
sometimes thrives—that crime is not always followed by ex¬
posure—and having lost his moral integrity, without loss of
reputation, he stands precisely at the most perilous point in
the career of a man of business. We may not stop here to
indicate all the probabilities in that man's future. They
may be as various as the open paths of temptation in the
market-places of the world. They may be checkered by
brilliant speculations, enormous gains, unlimited extrava¬
gance, disastrous failure, concealed frauds—perhaps exposure,
disgrace, a dishonored name and a felon's doom. The world's
verdict upon him, to the last, may be favorable—will be, if
he can continue to hold on to his wealth, no matter how ac¬
quired; but his own conscience, if it survive, will declare
him a traitor to principle, an offender against God. But the
barriers to a return to innocence are too many to be sur¬
mounted. The restitution of ill-gotten gains required of the
repentant sinner, is now impossible, and he lives without God
and dies without hope. Thus the pursuit of sin ends in death.
We have supposed our young man to have escaped from
the gamester's hell, after a brief experience. But it is not
often thus, with those who have entered that charmed circle.
Gaming more generally becomes a passion and vitiates his
whole life. Its excitement is the very breath of being.
Whatever the employments of the day, the gaming table
becomes his nightly resort. Here he pursues sin, with a
greed that overcomes the opposition of principle and con¬
science and interest, until all nobility of nature is dead.
On this altar he sacrifices all things—money (whether his
own or anothers), time, health, friendship, family, reputation,
honor—all are consumed in these baleful fires. The libations
here poured out are the tears of wife and children—here he
yields up the last thought of good and the last hope of a
purer and better life, and the end may be, that, abandoning
all else, he becomes a professional gambler.
Then his path to death is more open and of easier descent,
than that of almost any other sinner. For how can he re-
20
turn to life over the ruin that strews his downward course ?
Can he repair the broken fortunes of his victims—give back
the widow's portion or the orphan's inheritance ? Can he
restore innocence to the young man he has enticed to the
snare? Can he return to him the father's gains or the
mother's income, entrusted to his hands—honest hands until
he was enticed to the first game of chance? No, never.
There are such heaps of ruin in the past—that he dare not
even look back. Nothing is left him but to strive to forget
God, and to plunge madly onward, stifling every monition
of conscience, and, amid the excitements of loss and gain, to
forget the past, defy the future, and make what he can out of
the present. He has pursued evil—and for him there is
nothing but death. The promise of his youth was good—
but in an incautious hour he yielded to'the tempter, and
crossed the boundary between right and wrong, expecting
soon to get back. But there was no way of return.
I beg you, young man, to be warned against taking the
first wrong step—lest such an end as I have portrayed await
you.
Let us turn to another picture. You have seen one on the
steeet, reding in his cups, now simple and maudling, now
noisy and profane, shunned by men, the sport of idle boys
and cruel yesters, who at last sinks into the gutter, no longer
a man. He has yielded to appetite, until he has become bru¬
tish. His pursuit of evil has ended in moral death.
Yet he was once as confident of his ability to control his
appetites as any of you are, who may be following his steps.
Mark the way he went and shun it. He was once a noble
boy. His impulses were generous, his friends many. His
father was proud of his talents, his mother cherished him as
Heaven's choicest gift to her, sisters clung to him tenderly,
younger brothers looked up to him with respect and confi¬
dence. Brilliant prospects lay before him. He only needed
to add self-denial and energy to his natural endowments and
his advantages of condition, to become a renowned victor in
life's battle. But he met the tempter and fell—met that
21
tempter lurking every where—in the workman's cupboard,
in the secret closet of the merchant and professional man, or
close by the walks of business, behind the screen of the
frequented bar room. He first met this tempter, it may be, in
the school boy's mad revels, or at his father's hospitable
board, or at the festive pleasure party, or at the marriage
feast, where mirth and beauty, where woman presided at
the first dethronement of his reeling reason, and made sport
at his budding ruin. At one, or other, or all of these places,
where fashion and folly pass round the wine cup and pre¬
scribe the stated daily draught of distilled perdition, he met
this tempter, and yielded to the seduction, and fell.
But his ruin was not accomplished in a day. He had a
struggle with his better self, before he yielded wholly to the
destroyer. In wiser moments he recalled with shame his
maudlin folly and drunken self exposures. It was long be¬
fore he was so dead, as not to feel keenly his father's earnest
expostulations, and to experience bitter remorse when his
mother's anguish and his sisters' tears betrayed their knowl- .
edge of his fall—showed him that the iron had entered their
souls. Conscience, then, would hear none of his excuses.
It was no palliation before this honest friend, that gay com¬
panions had enticed him into youthful indiscretions; that
his exuberant spirits had induced self forgetfulness; that he
had only complied with the customs of society; that, still
master of himself, he despised the affectatiof! of a singular ab¬
stemiousness; that occasional excesses, under circumstances
not discreditable in polite society (his only standard of be- i
haviour and morals,) would never in his case degenerate into
confirmed sottishness. Notwithstanding these conventional
pleas, conscience would warn him; and he made compromises
with the faithful monitor, by vows of reformation, and by I
occasional reform. And thus his life ran on, alternating
between victory and defeat. •
Meanwhile he is married, and sons and daughters grow up
about him. She who has entrusted her happiness to him
has done so, notwithstanding the beacon lights of experience
22
show multitudes of shipwrecked families, where the helm
has been committed to one who has ever been intemperate.
She married him in the fallacious hope that love for her
would effect a cure where moral principle has availed noth¬
ing ; but he—perhaps after a brief pause—still pursues his
downward course.
Then follow the tears of a wife—the anguish of her heart
graving deep lines in her sad face; then follow failing for¬
tunes—desertion by friends—loss of emploj ment and repu¬
tation, the family falling away from its place in society, the
children growing up with constantly narrowing advantages
and marked by growing signs of the pinching want that
dwells in the drunkard's home; then come, beastly drunken¬
ness, squalid poverty, penury, hunger—until at length, his
callous heart is bereft of all natural affection, and he, moved
by no tears and incapable of pity, can with curses and blows
rob wife and children of their last morsel of bread to gratify
his insatiable thirst for drink.
And now, he is a street drunkard, lying by the curb stone
—an object of disgust to the careless wayfarer—of compas¬
sion to the few who knew him in better days. He pursued
sin—he has found death. In vain has conscience condemn¬
ed and friends warned him; in vain has his father remon¬
strated, his sisters wept, his mother entreated; in vain have
his wife and chillren pleaded with him—by words, by tears,
by their want ami degradation, by their constantly descend¬
ing fortunes, that he would cease this mad pursuit. Yet he
would not; but under the fearful penalty of death—of the
death of conscience, of intellect, of all affection, of every no¬
ble instinct and lofty principle, he has followed up sin, un¬
til now it remains to make but one more downward plunge,
and that is to eternal death. From that one further step, only
a miracle of grace can save him. Without it, he is doomed.
0! young man, of hopeful promise,[who now dalliest with
the tempter, have I to-day only forecast your wretched fu¬
ture? Beware in time, and dash away the deadly bowl, [be¬
fore its poison has wrought in you this terrible death.
23
I now turn to another picture.
There ia another gross wickedness that must he held up to
public reprobation, however delicately the subject requires
to be treated—one other warning I must give the young
against a sin whose pursuit is death, though those in danger
may be startled at my plain speech, and those who can tole¬
rate only the prophet of "smooth things," may condemn the
preacher who warns, more than they do the sinners who
make his warnings necessary.
I feel compelled, therefore, to say—unwillingly as I ap¬
proach this topic—that one of the most grievous forms of
corruption among us originates in the fact, that there is in
our land a race whose inferior position—perhaps lower moral
constitution—renders them easy victims of seduction, and
they, in turn, become as facile tempters to wantonness. It
is deeply disgraceful to our boasted Christian civilization,
that it is esteemed only a venial fault to debauch and parti¬
cipate in crime with those whom Providence committed to
the guidance and guardianship of a higher race. Alas ! for
the rising generations, that here the school of licentious in¬
dulgence may be so early and so easily entered, almost without
reprobation by the public, and with little or no sense of de¬
linquency in the offender. Let the bare hint I drop here
fall, like good seed, into the hearts of my young hearers, and
bid them beware of the first wrong step in that path whose
descent to hell is steep and rapid.
Having once entered that path, where will your steps be
arrested? Have you ever considered the life of the wretch,
who, holding female virtue at a low estimate, has betrayed
innocence to gratify passion? Will you not say beforehand,
that every noble sentiment within Him is already dead or he
could not pursue evil in this direction. See with what hellish
art he plies his unsuspecting victim—feigns ardent devotion,
swears undying love—every word that drops from his lips
being a glozing lie. Unhappy victim—she hears, believes,
and is lost. She learns too late that she is counted only a
24
pretty toy—soon cast ayay. The perjured villain looks un¬
moved on the ruin he has wrought, sees the miserable object
of his wiles a wanderer from home—an outcast from society
—and marks, without a pang, her descent down every steep
of crime, lost not only to virtue but to shame, revenging upon
society the wrong done her, by becoming herself a temptress
and leading others into a common guilt—dying at last of
want, amid every loathsome and degrading accompaniment
of infamy, as near a demon as none but an abandoned woman
can become. Yet he, the guiltiest sinner, is permitted to
live—is tolerated in decent society, unwhipped of justice, as
though, it were nothing to society, that he has dishonored
some trustful maiden, tarnished the good name of a reputable
family, broken a mother's heart, and brought a father's gray
hairs in sorrow to the grave.
We are not now picturing the crime of the young man
only. The land mourns because of debauchees, dead already,
as to all the higher elements of life. W ill you tell me that
any moral life remains to thai man—that husband of a noble
woman—that father of virtuous daughters—who can return
to his family from the haunts of vice and the blandishments
of courtesan or concubine, debased by his excesses, and con¬
veying to his posterity the taint of his pollution ? Tell me
not there are none such. They are found all over the land,
and while I would most gladly be spared the pain of such
assertions, my high office requires that I hold such sinners
up to the reprobation of society, that every true woman may,
in the majesty of insulted virtue, scourge them back to the
companionship of the mistresses they have consorted with,
or the maid servants they have debauched;—requires, that I
announce to the persistent offender, that for his sin God will
mete out to him a fearful retribution. If you travel this
road you are plunging right onward to death. How can you
get back to your better, happier days ? Can you give back
lost innocence, or restore the victim of your passion to virtu¬
ous courses ? Can one, by years of repentance even, expiate
25
the guilt of that soul, which has scattered firebrands and
death along its selfish and guilty course ? No, no; he has
pursued sin and finds that sin is death—a death which only
tarries a little season before it culminates into that intensity
of corruption, wretchedness and remorse which make up the
hell, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
Who will say that for such a wretch there can be a hell
whose pains surpass the enormity of his guilt, whose retribu¬
tion can reach the measure of the misery he has meted out
to others! Take heed, young man, if you are treading this
way where the wanton temptress lurks. Stop, or your doom
is sealed for damnation.
But is it not an impertinence to talk of such gross sins in
this goodly company ? Can the preacher fear that any of
these most respectable hearers may realize such a-fearful ex¬
perience of life, as he has depicted? Grod forbid that it
should be so ; yet, alas ! he has warned others besides you,
that they were pursuing death, and he has seen them still
rush on in folly, till they have met the doom foretold.
Let me draw for you two pictures from life.
In a congregation to which I once preached, I often no¬
ticed a young girl growing up to womanhood, strikingly
characterized by gaiety in dress, indifference as a hearer, im¬
mobility of feeling and a supercilious bearing. As I came
to know her, I found her a fair specimen of a giddy, wilful,
worldly, irreligious, fashionable " miss," in her teens.. Her
father was a money-making man of the world—her mother
a professor of religion. They moved in good society, and
the young girl loved its flatteries and its follies. Boyish
beaux danced attendance upon her, and they talked folly by
the hour together. Pleasure-hunting became her vocation ;
by day, the dancing school, pic-nics, fetes, rides, promenades
on those public streets where she could see most and be most
seen; of evenings, the opera, concerts, fairs, tableaux,
balls, cards, and far too frequently, the theatre, called by an
elegant irony, the "school of morals,"—in sad truth, the pro¬
lific hot-bed where the young are forced into a precocious
D
26
depravity. She heard many a warning of the temptations
lying in the dangerous path she trod, for she was a constant
attendant'^t church, though, alas ! unimpressed by the
truths she heard; and the watchful eye could detect proof
that not religious duty, but worldly interests and passions
brought her there; that she was profanely making the tem¬
ple of God a theatre for the display of self, offering incense
to vanity—not homage to her Creator. I dare venture to
assert that you all are acquainted with young girls much like
what she then was in character and conduct—that then she
was no worse than they now are. But, despising all warn¬
ings from the pulpit, she was pursuing evil and she found
death. I removed elsewhere—and when I heard again of
this spoiled child of pleasure, it was, that she ,had fallen I
Let the curtain drop here. There is a warning in this life.
If there be any whose feet stand in slippery places, let them
take heed.
I knew once a' lad of rare genius—at school, a leader in
his classes—at home, the pride of doting parents—every
where, a praised and petted boy. His father was, nominally,
a Christian—his mother, deeply pious. Example and influ¬
ence kept him from the follies and sins usual among boys.
He was moral, and attained a manly character, before he
reached man's age; and before that time indeed had entered,
with promise, upon a professional career. In his rearing,
one great wrong had been done him. He was flattered,
yielded to, over-indulged,—meant in kindness, but an occa¬
sion of ruin. His character was enervated, and he was
prepared for the tempter's snare. Called very early in life
to an important position, where he was removed from the
healthful atmosphere of home, and thrown into the society
of a small coterie of professional colleagues, infidel in creed,
worldly in principle, and dissolute in life, his mind was
poisoned and his morals corrupted; and two short years
completed his downfall. In a fatal hour, he met her whom
Solomon (Prov. vii, 6-27) so graphically describes—the
strange woman, "who flattereth with her words." "And,
27
in the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night,
he went the way to her house, and behold ! she met him in
the attire of a harlot and subtile of heart, and she caught
him and kissed him, and with an impudent face said to him
—come—I came forth to meet thee. With her much fair
speech she caused him to yield, with the flattering of her lips,
she forced him. He went after her straightway, as an ox
goeth to the slaughter; or as a fool to the correction of the
stocks." Such women set their snares for your feet in our
streets, my young friends—beware of them. With such a
one, he, of whom X speak, became entangled—and in a mad
hour marriage vows were secretly exchanged, and he found
himself, when just of age, bound for life—the husband of a
degraded woman. This irretrievable folly and sin preyed
upon his mind—he felt that he had inextricably entangled
himself and had blasted all his fair prospects—there was no
return—no place of repentance, though he sought it with
tears of remorse; the terrible past could, not be undone-she
could not lift a prayer to that God whose early lessons he had
so despised; he had hedged up his own way beyond re¬
demption—and he plunged into reckless dissipation. The
end hastened on. After a night of debauch with his coterie
of friends, toward the dawn he staggered to his bed and laid
him down to die. The following day, a friend, a physician
accidentally calling, found him ill, and sought his pulse.
There was none at the wrist—he laid his finger on the arm
—none there; on the temple, there a feeble beat. The
young man now first alarmed, cried out—"Merciful God!
Doctor, is my pulse gone ? Has it come to this ?" He then
felt for his own heart beats, and said—" I must die—no more
music—" and falling straightway into a stupor, in an hour,
the promising boy—the bright young genius, slept the sleep
of death—a victim of "the strange woman who flattereth
with her words, whose house inclineth unto death, and her
paths unto the dead. None that goeth to her return again—
neither take they hold upon the paths of life." Beware!
I have adduced my examples from only the well instructed
• class in society. I have been lingering about the altar of
God, or under the shadow of His temple. If I have followed
28
some from these sacred precincts out into the darkness
beyond, I have not tarried there to display the character and
life of those, who have never dwelt in the light of the sanc¬
tuary—df those who have not, like you, had abundant in¬
struction and warning. If here, we may find such fruits of
worldliness and neglect of religion as I have exhibited to¬
day, is it a wonder, that in that outer circle, where gospel
truth rarely if ever penetrates, every imaginable crime pre¬
vails? If the better part of society is so ungodly, can we
expect from those in darkness from their birth, anything else
than fraud, licentiousness and violence? Shall we wonder
any more that our land is filled with drunkards, liars, swin¬
dlers; with thieves, gamblers, robbers; with harlots, adulter¬
ers, murderers ;^that the air is heavy with oaths, and curses,
and blasphemies; that the taint of a mortal corruption is up¬
on society, hurrying multitudes to death ?
Friends and brethren, it is time we arouse from our torpor,
and set about staying the tide of evil that threatens to deluge
us. Iniquity stalks abroad in open day. With brazen front
she clamors at our street corners, she sets her nets by the
wayside—she enters our houses—she corrupts our young
me#—she ruins our young women—she controls the popu¬
lace—she paralyses the church—she is leading us to destruc¬
tion. The heavens are black with threatenings—all earth is
vocal with warnings—all providence is a protest against our
sins; and yet we will not repent. God wooed us in our
prosperity and we waxed fat and kicked against Him. He
has sent adversity and we rebel yet more. Our land ravaged
by war, our dwellings burned, our towns and cities destroy¬
ed, our wealth wrested from us; many of our best and
bravest slain—mourning in almost every home, sorrow and
gloom in every heart-r-the past lost, the* future having no
promise—all this is the terrible voice of God calling us to
repentance, lest worse befall; and yet Iniquity is allowed
still to stalk abroad, gathering her forces against Jehovah,
growing bolder day by daj^, and sweeping the land with a
wider ruin. More and more we pursue evil, break down
every barrier an Almighty hand has built across our path,
overleap all obstructions, defy argument, scoff at entreaty,
repel all calls to repentance, quench the Spirit, lift the
hand against God, and continue pursuing evil—rushing on
to death.
0! merciful God—the God of our fathers—whom we
would have to be the God of our children, if there be mercy
left for such sinners as we are, stay thy hand.