It Ysn't all Right
( 24 )
BEING A COMPLETE AND
THOROUGH REFUTATION
OF THE PERNICIOUS DOCTRINE THAT
"Whatever is, is Right
By Cynthia Tempie.
WE HAVE HAD A SURFEIT OF "PHILOSOPHY," NOW WE WANT COM-
MON SENSE
BOSTON:
PUBLISHED BY THE NEW ENGLAND REFORM ASSOCIATION.
NEW YORK:
S. T. MUNSON, Ag’t, 143 FULTON-STREET.
1861.


It Isn't all Right.
BEING A COMPLETE AND
THOROUGH REFUTATION
OF THE PERNICIOUS DOCTRINE THAT
“Whatever is, is Right."
By Cynthia Temple.
WE HAVE HAD A SURFEIT OF “PHILOSOPHY ;" NOW WE WANT COM-
MON SENSE.
BOSTON:
PUBLISHED BY THE NEW ENGLAND REFORM ASSOCIATION.
N E W Y 0 Ꭱ Ꮶ :
S. T. MUNSON, Ag’t, 143 FULTON-STREET.
1861.

Within these last two years there has gone forth, on its,
destructive mission, a most mischievous doctrine, (as it is
popularly understood) to the effect that “whatever is is
right”—a sort of philosophical carte blanche for deeds that
are not, and never can be right. To help crush out this
withering falsity—to assert the supremacy of conscience,
Divine order and law; to help explode this revived fallacy,
and to call back the wandering souls who, allured by its
glare, may have strayed away from the True Path—is the
sole object of this publication. And that Heaven will bless
the endeavor and crown it with abundant success, is the
prayer, and hope, and fervent expectation of
THE AUTHOR.
Entered according to Act of Congress.

IT ISN'T ALL RIGHT.
WITHIN a few brief years many, very many novel and exceedingly
strange, not to say hurtful, ideas and notions have sprung up, to
challenge attention and demand analysis ; nor have they failed to
impress themselves upon the plastic front of this, the most remark-
able age, and eventful epoch, of the great world's history. Na no-
tion, theory, hypothesis or statement, no matter how wild, immoral,
obscene or ridiculous, but will find some to accept and believe it,
even with all its palpable absurdities. Utopianisms, of all sorts and
kinds, are rife to-day in the public mind. Strange, wild vagaries
abound on all sides; and we encounter extremes of the most vio-
lent description, turn whithersoever we may. In fact, as a general
rule, the wilder the vagary, the more it departs from common sense
and innate respectability, the more certain it is to attract attention,
and enlist recruits-so deeply runs the abnormal vein through the
bodies politic, social, philosophic and religious. Sinners of all
sorts, but more especially those with penchants towards a particu-
lar kind of license, have always been on the qui vive for plausible
excuses for their derelictions from the path of common honesty and
moral and personal rectitude. Nor have the so-called philosophers
of the times been at all backward or slow in the work of supply-
ing these excuses. Every sort and species of villainy is, in these
days, attempted to be based upon-Sacred Scripture. Your Mor-
mon “seals” a dozen or two wives, according to Scripture; your
affinity-man or woman, claims holy inspiration as his or her war-
rant for infracting every social law; the Perfectionist who lives in
complex marriage” with two hundred and seventy-four-females-
(for to call them WOMEN were a desecration of that holy name !)
tells you that “the true Church of Christ constitutes one great
soul ;" and that the union between its members, of right, ought to
be of the most intimate character. And these wretches have the
effrontery to assert that in so doing they are but following out the
example and precepts of Jesus the Blessed ! People there are by
thousands who seek to so freely translate texts of Scripture, or

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philosophical statements, that they can go on doing just as passion
prompts, and yet apparently not transcend the law. Language, in
these days, is twisted and distorted to such an extent, that one can
hardly affirm that black is black, or that two and two are four, lest
some so-called reformer or transcendental genius steps forth, and
in a long disquisition proves to you that “black is not black, for the
bly white; and that so far from two and two being four, they are
really only three, because the mind can never conceive of similar-
ities. There are no absolute resemblances, in figures, volume, or
anything else ; wherefore two and two must make either more or
less than four 1"
And so with words the fellow plays,
Talks much, yet still he nothing says.
Sophistry reigns King to-day, and rules it with a strong hand
over every domain of human life, and human endeavor and inter-
est. There are those who will give you a “moral law” and Scrip-
tural authority for the commission of every crime in the entire cal-
endar. There are others who take refuge behind the walls of an
exploded Optimism-call aloud to the passer-by ; bid him or her
take full advantage of the times ; eat, drink and be merry—for
“WHATEVER IS is RIGHT"_itself, in so far forth as human life,
interest and action are concerned, one of the most pestilent fal-
lacies, and philosophical absurdities, that ever seduced a human
being from the paths of moral Rectitude and Virtue. The abomi-
nable notion has gone forth, and to-day is slowly but surely not
only sapping the foundations of domestic and social happiness, but
is certainly infusing its deadly miasma over all the land. To do
something towards stopping the advance of this horrible doctrine,
is the design entertained by the Author of this Pamphlet—a
Woman, an immortal soul, a member of the great sisterhood of
women--a female pleading the cause of her sex, and one who prizes
the virtue, purity and honor of her sex beyond all other things, the
grace of God alone excepted.
People in those days talk much of “Liberty," when there is al-
ready too much Freedom in some respects; for “Philosophers”
(Heaven save the mark !) have talked so much of liberty to do
this, and liberty to do the other, that instead of wearing the god-
dess crown, she has of late been clothed in the wanton's cap and
robe. Virtue has seceded from Liberty; and Vice, for a time, has

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usurped her throne ; but with Heaven's aid, we trust to soon drive
her from the seat. In the work here undertaken to be accomplished,
I confidently look for aid to every honest man. The deeps of my
soul assure me that I look not in vain.
Within a comparatively recent period, the Pope-ish doctrine, that
whatever exists is just as the Eternal One decreed and designed,
has gone forth to the wide world under the express sanction of
more than one great and honored name ; and it has received the
implied, if not the direct, countenance of scores of others, not a few
of whom call themselves Thinkers, Philosophers, and Philanthrop-
ists. This dogma, as it is, (and it cannot fail to be popularly under-
stood,) is the most formidable and dreadful battery ever leveled
against human happiness from the frowning ramparts of Hell itself ;
for while apparently encouraging a reliance on the goodness of our
Heavenly Father, it in reality sets a high premium on vice, and is
the direct result of the most appalling and dreadful enginery of evil,
attacking man, as it does, in his weakest points, and throwing a
glamour over the moral sense which at once shuts out the benign
light of all that is Pure, and Good, and True. It is the Dahlgren
gun of wickedness-ignores all human responsibility, fosters all
sorts of iniquity, prolongs the reign of Evil, retards the dawn of
Righteousness, makes a person a mere natural machine, stultifies
the moral sense, sears the conscience, libels Nature, blasphemes the
Infinite, panders to the basest of all appetites and prejudices, de-
thrones the virtues, and inaugurates Discord and Error. It tears
down at a single effort every rampart of domestic virtue, and be-
comes the authoritative warrant for license of every sort, and for
every kind of wrong-doing, libertinism and profligacy that barba-
rous minds can invent.
Surely something can, and ought to be done, on the part of
women especially, to extract the fangs of this viper, and to send it
back writhing to its home, among all the other festering falsehoods
of the past ages; to send it back to associate with all other foul and
loathing things that have ever cursed the earth.
May the world have a safe and speedy deliverance from this last
new pirate! At all events, I feel called upon to do my part to-
wards this most desirable end ; and every man who remembers the
word “mother,” and recalls all the holy memories which cluster
around it-every man who has a sister, or presses an innocent

IT ISN'T ALL RIGHT.
daughter to his heart, will gladly become my helper in this impor-
tant crisis.
In a certain, merely material aspect of the subject, it is un-
doubtedly true that “whatever is is right;" but when the venue is
changed to intellectual, social, moral, religious and domestic grounds,
then the affirmation is as foreign to the truth as any falsehood well
can be. Take the civilized world at large, and not over ten per-
sons in every one hundred can or will comprehend, or rest con-
tented with, the higher and nobler definition of the great postu-
sical planes. On the contrary, if you affirm in the presence of one
hundred persons that “it is all right," ten to one but that ninety of
them will secretly roll the knowledge up, and profit by their-not
your-intended definition thereof. It is human nature to take ad-
vantage of everything that promises to cut the restraining cords,
and permit a looseness of action, thought, and sentiment. There
are scores of thousands in this vast empire, who, upon learning
that the so-called great men and women of the world, have asserted
that all actions and all things are right and proper, will clap their
hands in jubilance, and secretly, if not openly, avail themselves of
the sophism to drive with a loose rein along the roads of life ; do
all sorts of evil things ; give passion and prejudice full scope and
play, and do their utmost to gratify self, heedless of the certain
consequences that must accrue to themselves as individual integers
of society; or to community as a whole. What care they if the
walks and ways of life are transformed into practical realizations of
Pandemonium, so long as their ends are served by the removal of
the restrictions, every barrier and mound of which is swept away
by the little sentence "whatever is, is right ?”? Not much, it seems
to me. True it is, that all men are not either villains or badly dis-
posed ; equally true it is, that all women are not at heart unchaste ;
yet, if this modern doctrine be true, both may become so, and that,
too, without violating any of God's laws; for if they remain virtu-
ous, it is all right; if they sink into rotten filth and vice, it is all
right still
Unmistakably, this sophism is the most dangerous one that has
yet arisen, either within or without the ranks of Spiritualism—the
great and prolific mother of a very singular family of ideas. True,
the notion did not originate with those who believe in the advent

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of human spirits to the earth, and in their interference in mundane
affairs. The advocates of the dogma do not pretend it to be a reve-
lation from the other world, yet it cannot be denied that very many
of those who have been most active in foisting this last absurdity on
the world, are also those who believe devoutly in the ministration of
departed souls. Justice, however, must be done, and therefore it is
incumbent upon me to say that, notwithstanding many Spiritualists
profess to believe this phase of Optimism, yet itself forms no part
of the Spiritual creed ; and tens of thousands of this class of think-
ers reject the new ism in utter scorn. Only a few have clear con-
ceptions or realizations thereof. Some people say that they most
devoutly believe in infinite damnation ; heartily concur in the as-
sertion that some are elected to reign in the courts of Glory, and
that some are god-voted to an eternal baking, roasting, broiling,
grilling, in the deeps of Hell. No doubt these people are honest ;
still all such, save rarely a lunatic, consider the chances of "num-
ber one," as most excellent for escape from, or evasion of, the fire-
doom, which they feel equally assured will be the lot of their neigh-
bors, the numbers two, three, and four, and so on. Self-love rules
this age.
Says G., in public confession, "brothers and sisters pray for me ;
I am the most heinous sinner, the vilest wretch on earth, and feel-
ing the full enormity of my wickedness, I can but have a blessed
assurance that if my just deserts were meted out, I should at this
moment be grilling on the bars of hell, over the belching flames of
the eternal pit, fanned by the infinite wing of God's justice !”
Mr. G. knows that he is not uttering his real sentiments ; he does
not believe one word of such an All-Right doctrine, and only talks
for the purpose of trying to say something eloquent--something
that shall tingle in the ears, and awake the sleeping emotions of
his andience. Down he sits, and straightway the Moderator calls
on brother H. to tell his experience. Brother H. rises, and, hav-
ing a spice of satire in him, says, “as for myself, I know that I am
less virtuous than it is possible to be. I have nothing to say con-
cerning my soul or its conditions, but I feel assured that every
word uttered in regard to himself, by brother G., is true-every
word of it!" "Why you miserable lie-beller, I'm a better man
than you, any day !" thinks, if not, exclaims, brother G., in high
dudgeon, at the idea of being supposed to believe for a single
instant, the unreasonable things whereof he had, but a moment

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since, delivered himself. It is utterly impossible that he should be-
lieve it. His first speech was unnatural, and its substance false and
hollow ; his second one was spoken from the heart, and was, in all
respects, a normal exhibition of human nature.
The advocates of the All-Right fallacy, are so many brother
G.’s ; they sail in the same boat, and, when weighed in the same
balances, tested by their own doctrines, will, to a man, be found
wanting, and practically refute their own theory. That very odd
sort of philosophers, who claim to be Optimists, and believe that
« whatever is, is right,” who "recognize neither merit or demerit in
souls, have no fear of evil, devils, men, God or angels," and who use
words to so little purpose, cannot for an instant, stand the fire of
honest, candid criticism. Cheat one of them out of a dollar ; tra-
duce his character; call his wife a harlot, and his children bas-
tards ; break his heart by all sorts of ill usage, and then ask him
if it is all right ? and he will admit it to be so, (if I may use an ex-
pressive vulgarism,) over the left! If he replies, “it is all right that
those things should be done ; but it is also right that I defend
myself and make you suffer all I possibly can,” then set him down
as so far, non compos, for green and purple cannot be the same
color ; a valley and a mountain cannot be the same. Such a man is
bent on riding his hobby ; like Ephraim, he is bound to his idols,
and the more he is let alone, the better for all concerned.
Logic is worth something in the affairs of the sublunary world.
By its aid we determine truth, and are enabled to detect error ;
and whosoever ignores its canons, not only usurps the title of philo-
sopher, but evinces a woful want of common sense beside.
“God made all things; God is perfect; He never makes mis-
takes ; ergo, 'whatever is, is right,' proper—just what it should
be, else God is a delusion and Nature a blank lie." Such is a
fair specimen of the looseness with which these modern Optimists
reason. One would think they were afflicted with something denser
than mere intellectual obtuseness, else they could not fail to detect
the glaring absurdities hid away in the above ridiculous proposition.
Entrenched behind that rampart, they imagine their fortress to be
impregnable; when, if they would inspect it a little closer, the
seeming adamant would prove to be even more flimsy than brown
paper. Let us see: The advocates of the doctrine now being
anatomized, pretend to believe most devoutly in the great “Prin-
ciples of Progression.” Now if these last do really exist, then their

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new ism is a falsehood. Why? how? Because the very fact that
all things (man and his institutions included,) have, during all past
time, been ceaselessly advancing from the imperfect towards a
higher and completer state—have been, and still are, steadily going
ahead from bad to better, and from better to best-proves irrefu-
tably that God never made a perfect thing, never created perfect
conditions, but only planted PERFECTIBILITY in all that he has made.
Of course, then, if this be so—and all things abundantly prove it
-whatever is cannot be right ; but all things are steadily moving
in that direction.
man's affairs wherein it will be all just, and correct, and proper,
for him to either sit calmly while some one insulates his head from
his shoulders, or for him to perform the like operation on another
person. There must be a time wherein it is all right and proper,
and very fine for him, to run off with his neighbor's wife, or his ox,
seduce his friend's daughter, debauch the morals of his son, and to
do other delectable things of the same general ilk—since “there's a
time for all things."
Now I broadly assert that whosoever affirms that there ever was,
is at present, or ever will be, a time wherein murder-grim, gaunt,
spectral, red-handed, bloody-mouthed murder—is all right, is either
a maniac or a fool! And yet the oblique, if not the direct, effect
of the promulgation of the sophism, cannot but be the positive
encouragement of that and all the other deep villainies God's earth
ever groaned under, or God's angels ever witnessed and wept over !
“Oh, these things are all right to the conditions that gave birth
to the acts you deprecate,” replies the Optimist, to which I rejoin :
Sir, or Madam, are these CONDITIONS right? Let us probe the
matter a little deeper. You are a merchant; I enter your store to
buy some cloth. We differ as to the price ; I am an honest woman
and you think to lure me from virtue's path, and instead of con-
versing about calico, you talk about Love and passion, my red,
rosy cheeks, plump figure, sparkling eye, and a deal more in the
same direction. Is this all right? Well, I go home, and, some-
how or other, my husband finds it out, and as a recompense for
your gallantry, breaks nearly every bone in your body; and in lay
ing you on a sick bed for a year or so, not only ruins your business,
and reduces your wife and children to beggary, but also blasts your

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prospects for life. Is this all right? Again : Suppose that I am
a man ; that I have a quarrel with you ; that, tempted by the devil,
urged on by a momentary but ungovernable rage, I deal you a
blow which sends you across the sea of Time to the shores of
Eternity in less than five minutes : Is that as it should have been ?
Come, sir Optimist, speak out! Now that stroke of my fist may
have forever decided the question whether you are thereafter to be
an inhabitant of Heaven, or a denizen of Hades. Do not fail to
take this consideration into the account.
Of course I am arrested, jailed, tried, convicted by a deliberating
choked-gaspingly, horribly CHOKED TO DEATH! Your business was
settled in ten seconds; mine takes as many months, and within a
day or two of the final act, my ears are regaled with the delicious
music of the saws and hammers, busily plied in constructing the
gay little platform from whence I am to step into Ah, God !
what may I not step into from that platform !
During the delightful season of my waiting, my poor soul is
prayed to, for, with and at ; I am well fed, it is true, during the
intervening days, weeks, and months, but I can't grow fat; my
digestion is exceedingly poor, and I cannot eat for thinking. Ab,
it is a terrible thing to think, under certain circumstances, yet it is
our doom, and in compelling man to think, God created man's
heaven or his hell. Well, the day has come at last—a gala day
it is too, for don't you see the soldiers are out, in all their feathers
and finery ? Certes ! it is a gala day—these hanging times ! One
would think the most fitting colors to be worn on such occasions
should be black-black as the heron's plume_black as night.
Tis a deed of darkness to be done ;
Put out the lights-conceal the sun!
There stands the monument of the civilization of the nineteenth
century—a gibbet. Up, up its steps I walk-painfully walk—for
my arms are tied behind me. True, I am supported by a man
of God on one side, and a sheriff on the other ; one to sign my
passport to the other world, the other to see me safely on the
voyage—and the consciousness of these things makes it very
painful walking up these sixteen steps. At last we reach the
platform, and I take a look upward, one last lingering look at
the bright blue heaven above me; but instead of it, my bulging
eye-balls fairly crack with agony as my sight rests upon the

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11
cross-beam, to the centre of, which depends a short chain with
one large link. I know that the link is for the hook attached
to one end of a rope ; the noose at the other end is for my neck !
Ah, God, have mercy on my soul ! "Time's up !” says the
Christian sheriff--" and you must prepare to- die!” The
military, the policemen, the “invited guests," and holders of
tickets to the hempen opera, catch his words, and a nameless thrill
pervades the mass, every one of whom stands there to receive a les-
son in humanity, justice, mercy and Christianity ! And now the rope
is adjusted, the signal given ; there is a sudden chug-strange colors
float before my eyes, and stranger sounds salute my hearing sense
--soft, low, sweet dulcet sounds it may be the requiem for the
dead which God's angels sing !-I am dead ! My soul has been
sent upon its long journey at the end of a yard of rope, and my
body-poor sinful body-is dangling there to damn the age which
sanctions the deed—dangles there a sickening sight, to sear the
memories of the little host who had gone out there to see a man
die—to see me strangled !
Of course, all these things are right, are they ?-all just what
God intended when He made the worlds, are they? Nonsense !
But this is not all. Next day the story of my strangling is most
minutely told in all the papers. The horripilant feast is forced upon
scores of thousands, who read it from the fascination of Horror.
Out of all this mass of readers, some three or four, who are life-
weary, reading how "very easily" the culprit died, go straightway
and hang themselves, as the most expeditious and pleasant way to
shuffle off their miseries. We are not to the end even yet ; for my
wife dies of a broken heart, and my children are very frequently
and benevolently told that their father once upon a time, danced a
hornpipe on the empty air, until at last the taunts and jibes and
jeers upset their reason; they run stark staring mad; one com-
mits suicide, and the other ends her days in a madhouse. Is all
this right ? Oh, but we are dealing with a glorious doctrine, most
assuredly !
from the popular interpretation and acceptance of the All-Right
doctrine ? Verily, nay! For the terrible act, the slaying of a man
in my anger, may have doomed me to an awful punishment in the
world beyond. It may be, that by that act of slaying I may have
incurred a penalty that may not be satisfied when ages of agony

12
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shall have elapsed ; and by that one single deed every faculty of
my being may have been transformed into an instrument of torture.
Mankind must think ; and so long as my soul is capable of thinking,
the memory of my awful deed must cling to me, and I be doomed
to see the fearful drama, myself the chief tragedian, constantly
being re-enacted before the mind's eye, until, if ever, it may please
the King of kings to bid my torment cease. It may be that my
guilty soul shall be compelled to wander through all the eternal
ages yet to be, haunted by that terrible remembrance, and lashed
to agony by the inexorable whip of Remorse—the racking miseries
of a guilty conscience--than which, no greater Hell can be well
conceived ! The deed was mine, and I must suffer the dreadful
penalty ; there can be no evasion, no escape ; for a man cannot
commit suicide in Eternity—cannot run away from himself! Yet
this murder, this execution, and all the dire consequences that
follow in its train, is all right ! May God have mercy on us, and
forbid it for His own sake !
At this point we are met with something after this style, by the
would-be Optimists : “In the light of great general principles,
everything must be as it should : From the Infinite's stand-point
know? You are not the Infinite ; and what can you know of the
views He entertains of man and his actions, save that, being good
Himself, He loves to see His creatures so?
No one will, or, being sensible, can dispute the existence of cer-
tain immutable or fixed principles, which govern all things in God's
material universe ; and, so far as dead matter and the unreasoning
brutes are concerned, scarce a person can be found silly enough to
deny that whatever is, is right. But it so happens that man be-
jongs to neither of these categories—is not a citizen of either of
these dominions ; on the contrary, he pertains to a higher realm
altogether than those to which trees, stones, dogs, horses, sheep,
goats and oxen pertain to, and wherein they begin and end their
being ; yet the doctrine in question places man and all else in the
same category.
The same things cannot be predicated of man, that are justly so
of animals. People have liberty to choose and decide ; trees and
brutes do not. Human beings have a sense of fitness, fairness and
penalty ; but I have never yet seen a conscientious tree, nor a dog
or tiger suffering under the pangs of remorse. How happens it, if

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13
« it is all right," that we cannot elevate robbery and wrong to the
dignity of the fine arts? How is it that he who debauches his
soul, or the souls and bodies of others, cannot sleep quiet o' nights?
Why, will the thing called Conscience be forever raising up the
ghosts of evil deeds, to haunt the doer till the death ?
Gentlemen and ladies of the All-Right school, you have missed
it this time ; for not only the moral and religious sentiments of the
age are against you, but it requires but a single effort, like the
present, to arouse the common sense of all the world to arms
against the sophistry. Nor do I care how closely you wrap your-
self in this new blanket, it is impossible for you to evade the law
of your own minds, or escape the inflictions of conscience whenever
that law is broken ; and this consideration and fact tells against
you with immense force and power.
"Oh," replies the All-Right philosopher, “it is evident that
you, Madame, are a Pharisee—one of the self-righteous ones, who
rub their hands and thank God that they are not like other men !"
Well, I reply, if they are better, why I say—“Good for the
Pharisees !” that's all. But, if you go on proclaiming your ism,
you will be quite Sad-you-see, before long, provided that truth and
logic are of more vital stamina than their opposites ; besides which,
I confess to a liking and respect towards him or her, who in full
view of the deep rascality everywhere abounding in scores and
hundreds of our human kinsfolk, can inwardly, truly, fully feel that
himself or herself is really righteous, and in the heart-deeps of
being, and in a strong conviction of personal probity, thank God
they are not like certain other people. Good for the Pharisees !
I say again, provided they be of the sort just sketched. .
At this, the All-Right person feels gleeful, and says" Ah, now
I have you ; for you can't help admitting that what you have just
said is all right !"
Not so fast, friend. I do not for an instant admit that the fear-
ful contrasts among men, which alone can provoke such exclama-
tions—without which no such expressions could ever be made-are
at all right. Every man and woman should be good and true, just
and righteous, and not merely a few of earth's children.
The age of virtuous talk is passing away ; the age of virtuous
action, we humbly trust, is drawing near. The genuine test of a
philanthropist's honesty lies in the performance of good deeds-
not in contenting himself with telling people it is all right, when

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he knows, if he will but look about him, that much that is, is
wrong. The only credentials current in the courts of Heaven, are
the good deeds done while in the body; nor will any amount of
sophistical twisting impose upon the recording angel who sits within
the gates of glory. Heaven has its customs law, nor will any con"
traband articles be allowed to enter, much less a soul whose best
days have been spent in deluding the multitude into the insane be-
lief that every crime in the calendar was All Right. There, a man
must appear to be what he really is. The law of Distinctness is im-
perative; and though Quashee, the negro who died fifty years ago,
and whese soul is as fair as the best white saint's among them all,
might desire to visit earth again, he could not do so in borrowed
plumes, but must come--and to the eye of all who might behold
him, must appear--a negro still ; the very self-same good-humored,
earnest-praying, singing, shouting Quashee—him who, down on the
plantations, used to carol to his dusky comrades all about their seeing
« De Lord a-comin' on his old gray mar',
Wid de golden saddle and silver bridle,
Bound down to jine de golden Car-a-WAN.
Wid a golden pipe and silver 'bacca,
Bound down to jine de golden CAR-a-wan.”
Bless thee, Quashee ! I would not change thee if I could, for thou
art good, and true, and earnest in thy singing, and thy prayers,
and there is a verve and a life to thy religion, which the white man
might well emulate ; still the law of Distinctness must forever keep
thee under its action--nor canst thou appear to be what thou art
not. Still, whatever be thy lot on earth or in Heaven, I can but
· bless thee in all thy outgoings and incomings, for thy lot and the
lot of thine has been-still is-very hard indeed.
Soul is an eternal asbestos; it cannot be consumed, but is puri-
fied by fire ; and so, whoever would have the soul a pieasant fount
of joys in the worlds above, must not lay up bad memories of bad
deeds, but forever steer clear of the rocks whereon it is certain to
strike if the “ All Right” be the beacon or the chart.
Education has much to do in man and woman's final making up.
There is a deal of good in every soul-whole mountains and rivers
thereof; but there is also much that may be perverted—many a
little brooklet of very bitter water. In human education many of
these have been unduly increased, till now they threaten to over-
flow the whole estate. Let us dam them up, cut off the supply,
and see to it that these brooklets--the passions and bad tendencies

IT ISN'T ALL RIGHT.
15
-be not caused to flourish by such culture as the oft-quoted max-
ims would encourage.
The age of extremes of one sort—now, happily, sliding away,
bids fair to be succeeded by another kind, unless good men and
earnest women seek to check it ere too strongly grown and mind-
entrenched.
We stand in the door of the dawn, fully persuaded that the sun
now rising will, ere long, gladden the hearts and homes of men.
We have had a surfeit of Philosophy, and we need a little COMMON
SENSE. The fact that the race can see the first gleams of a better
day, constitutes no just reason why any man or woman should as-
sunie an attitude of self-complacency, and proclaim alike to those
who can, and those who cannot think clearly, that all the sin and
neath the heavy load, is all right. Because to do so is to proclaim-
a lie !--and never was, nor can be, otherwise. It will not do to
shift the responsibility of all existing evils from ourselves to the
Creator. Why? Because man's actions are mainly volitional re-
sults, and spring from his great prerogative—liberty of choice !
Hence God is no more responsible for your deeds or mine, than we
are for those of our descendants forty centuries hence. Were it
otherwise, then creation is a stupendous farce, and God becomes
our inveterate enemy, instead of being what I believe Him-our
best and most benignant friend. The Infinite One created, made,
fashioned and decreed the progression and procession of all things.
But His work is not yet done—the mighty task is not yet com-
pleted ; for He is at this day still working up the worlds toward
the standard Himself can only know. He is still present with, and
over us, in His divine Fatherhood and Providence ; He still smiles
when we do His will-still grieves, as of yore, at all that is bad or
brutal, unseemly, unmanly, unwomanly, and wrong!
No, no ; it will not do to charge God with our shortcomings,
and none but an arrant coward would seek to crawl away from the
presence of the music himself has evoked ! Every true philanthro-
pist—and these, be it known, are not such as talk Temperance and
fatten on the worm of the still—are not such as publicly mourn
over harlotry, and let houses for its prosecution-are not such as
say, “It is all right,” and by their daily actions give themselves
the lie direct ; are not such as commiserate poor Pompey, and vote

16
IT ISNT ALL RIGHT.
a year, and from gaily-thronged platforms proclaim the negro a
man and a brother, and next day “damn his black picture” because
he offers love to their daughters, or attempts to sit down at the
same table-merely by way of testing their honesty, and perpetrat.
ing a "black joke" at the same time; not the strong-minded ones
who are so rampant for women's rights, public applause, oratory
and fanaticism, that they must needs enlist for life in a warfare
against all men—not one of whom they ever made happy for a sin-
gle hour ; not your lady of harsh voice and vinegar soul, who, in
the business of world-saving, "goes it with a rush,” to the utter
neglect of the fireside, the husband, the baby, and the dear, sweet
home; not the Spiritualist, who talks exceedingly spiritual and
acts as if the body and its gratifications were the only things worth
while attending to; not the Harmonialist, whose harmony of life,
deed and influence partakes of the nature of filing saws and dis-
cordant penny trumpets ; not of this sort is the true philanthropist ;
but rather he (or she) who in a quiet way does all the good possi-
ble—and sticks to it. Every such an one, I repeat, realizes that the
world needs bettering ; and for that reason feels called upon to en-
courage much less “talkee, talkee," and much more action, ACTION,
ACTION, with strong arm, steady purpose, and in the right direc-
tion. Evils—tremendous, soul-dwarfing, spirit-subjugating evils—
such as now afflict the world, can never be talked down ; they
must be written, worked, lived and fought down; and the true
business of every man and woman who wishes well to the world, is
to be up and doing, and keep doing all the while. Will the evils
whereof we so justly complain—prostitution, for instance-disap-
pear if we merely stand idly looking on, proclaiming that it is all
right, and voting ourselves philosophers, when we approach mnch
nearer being fools? He or she who thinks so, is neither man nor
woman, but only a sort of "What is it?” very interesting to look
at and listen to, but a "What is it ?” nevertheless.
every sense of decency or shame. Her present mission is to sell
herself for so much ready coin, to the first human brute who will
purchase her. Does she do this fearful sin from the pure love of
sinning ? No! she does it that she may hand over the jingling
deity to the baker in exchange for—bread ! bread sir, to keep her
above the ground for just a little longer.
She is coarse and

IT ISN'T ALL RIGHT.
untidy, uses bad language, and is low; but still, she is—a woman
-like your mother and like mine-and like them too, she was once
pure, and sweet, and beautiful, and good ; but ah, Christ ! how
fallen, oh, how fallen ! Yes, she was once like them ; God grant
that they never be like her. Is she fulfilling her proper destiny ?
Virtue is natural; vice is acquired. Bias: towards either is
hereditary. Circumstance governs the fate of many unfortunates
like that woman : she, nor you, nor I, can control circumstance
alone, but we can join the army of Goodness, before which bad cir-
cumstance must fly, and better take its place. Come, let's do it.
Let us see how many of such fallen ones we can save in a year--
this very identical current year. I'll try! Won't you?
The woman, that wretched sister ! Is she and her actions all
right? Nonsense ! Blasphemy to assert it? She is sliding down
the hill of Ruin ! and will reach the fatal bottom, unless we who
can, shall, and will, put forth the effort to redeem and save her.
and the shame, to those who have made her and them what we
see—she is marring the beauty of her deathless soul ; is killing by
inches the body she wears ; is defacing the priceless tablets of her
immortal being ; and whoever says all this is right, is a fit subject
for the lunatic hospital. And yet there are those who do make
this preposterous assertion. Now hundreds, aye thousands, there
be, who do not scruple to brand that woman—the unhappy repre-
sentative of an entire class—with all sorts of infamous and op-
probrious epithets, instead of, as they ought, saying and doing all
they can to reclaim and save her. They rack the language for
harsh names to apply to her, until the poor creature, feeling, most
bitterly feeling, that no kind heart throbs for her, no tenderness is,
or ever will be, vouchsafed ; that she must remain a victim to the
spirit of human cruelty, or what is, if possible, still worse--mock
charity ; feeling all this, and that she must continue to grope her
way all alone through the world, and then drop prematurely, and
uncared for into the cold damp grave from a still colder world,
and all unprepared, crawl up to the Judgment Seat; feeling all this
and more, it is no great marvel that her heart grows hard, and
her once pure soul now totters on the very brink of desperation,
while she eats, drinks and sleeps, the food and drink and slumber
of vice and infamy, day by day, and week after week. Look !
there she has accosted a man upon the side-walk, but scarce has a
single word passed ere one of the patent guardians or costodians

18
IT ISN'T ALL RIGHT.
of the Public Morals—an individual in blue coat, brass buttons and
arge authority, who has just tossed off a glass of the “good
Rhein wein”-the generous proffer of a burly ruffian who can
afford to pay for the protection of his magnificent looking-glasses
and marble counters, behind which he stands to deal out liquid
ruin at so much the glass-catches sight of the cyprian plying
her dreadful trade. She, he knows, cannot pay, and so he grows
indignantly scrupulous, gruffly tells her to move on, and accelerates
her movements with a round oath or two, and a not very gentle
push. She mutely obeys, because resistance is out of the question,
besides which she knows that he carries a legally authorized blud-
geon in his pocket, and that he would not hesitate to use it on the
slightest pretext, upon either herself or any one who should
expostulate or counsel gentler measures-a very dirty bludgeon it
is too_still he tries to keep it clean, and once in a while washes it
of the blood-spots and cleans it of the matted hair-human hair--
from the heads of the last half-dozen drunken sots whom he found
asleep upon the side-walks, and took such Christian means to
arouse from their airy slumbers. But why should we find fault ?
Isn't he a Regular Policeman ? Well, be quiet then, and don't com-
plain. What better can you expect? Is it at all reasonable to
demand that an officer should have plenty of muscle, and a heart
at the same time? Nonsense ! Now I ask if all the parts, or any
of this true picture are right ? and I answer No! and the utter
ance is both deep and full ; so deep, so loud, so full that the very
vaults of Heaven echo back, and ring out No!
No human being exists but in whom the germs of the generous
and good, the beautiful and the true lie, ready to shoot forth into
excellent glory. We know this, and know it well. These germs
may be in fallow ground, still they are there, and it is your business
and mine to so plow this fallow land that it shall cause these seeds
to spring up and thriftily grow. What though the soil be hard
and stony, dry and parched; the fruit of our culture will be rich
and succulent, for the warming beams of God's sunlight and grace
will perfect and ripen the produce, and it shall be immortally
sweet, eternally beautiful and fragrant, forever and for aye !
Reader, have you never observed the fact that even the very bad
and vicious occasionally flash forth somewhat of the Divine—some-
times gleam out the hidden glory? Well, there's a mine of dia-
monds in every soul, and God and nature, and all human love calls

IT ISN'T ALL RIGHT.
19
on you and I to bring these diamonds forth to the sunlight, that
they may catch the radiance of Heaven, and flash out their
glories on the air and to the world, kindling up the emulation of
virtue and excellent doing in all human souls.
There goes that abandoned woman. Let us follow her this
prostitute—this lost and ruined sister—this creature, fashioned
after the likeness of our God, but now, alas, so supremely foul and
wretched. She is hieing homeward! Homeward ? what a mock-
ery that word conveys; yet she has what she calls a home, and
beneath that shelter, such as it is, lies at this moment, upon its
pallet of straw, a babe- her child—bone of her bone, and flesh of
her flesh. Poor infant ! truly begotten in sin and brought forth
in iniquity ; but none the less a precious, priceless, immortal soul
for all that—A SOUL just as dear as any for which God's Son
forscok the courts of glory and came to earth to suffer and to die
on the stony heights of Calvary—a soul just as precious to the
Infinite heart, as the best born of earth-because it is a human
soul, and His life pulses through it as well as through you or me,
or the holiest ones of earth or heaven ; and, albeit, we may, and
as virtuous citizens of the great world, can but frown upon the
guilt and folly that opened the gate by the which it entered into
outer being—yet nevertheless it is a soul, and as such has crying
claims upon our love, and care, and kindliness ; for being here is
not that blessed baby's fault, and in the coming judgment God's
prosecuting angel will hold it accountable for its own sins, not for
its mother's sorrows and misfortunes. And even for its own sins,
Sandalphon, the Prayer-angel, will eloquently plead at the feet of
the crucified Redeemer.
Well, she has left the highway and turned down a narrow, dark,
and dreadful alley, one of these horrible sinks of moral poison,
pestilence and perdition—the awful and disgusting vice-cancers,
sin-blotches, and festering pest-lanes, which are the eternal disgrace
of all the great cities of the world. Infamous purlieus of misery,
wherein gaunt robbery moodily sits plotting his villainy, and pale
murder lies nursing red-handed butchery, who ere long will fright
the very world with horror !
How strangely people change ! A little while ago, and that
woman's crest was held aloft, and erect in brazen impudence and
intent upon drawing silly human flies into her horrible web—a web

20
IT ISN'T ALL RIGHT.
and in mind, as when they entered ; for it is poison—every thread
and fiber of it, except the baby in the bed—and the deadly odor
of the Upas fills all the region round about.
Why turns she so quickly down that lane? Well, I will tell
you. Because the itching and the tingling of her breasts told her
that the babe of her agony and her shame was a-hungered for the
thin blue milk of her bosom. And so she quits the street, for ma-
ternal love is much stronger than the love of guilt or money. Soon
the glare of the street-lamp no longer shines upon her form, for it
is lost amid the labyrinths and devious windings of that dark and
noisome alley way, this horrid tomb of all the human virtues. But
her aspect has changed ; and the flaunting courtezan hangs her
head, as she carefully and lightly threads her way along. The har-
lot's sun has set, and the star of the Woman and the Mother reigns
triumphant for-an hour.
Up, up, up, the dark and filthy stairs she flies, for the milk pains
urge her on; anon the attic is reached ; a little brass key turns
in the lock ; a ready match is ignited; the little lamp illumes the
seven by nine--den, for chamber it cannot be called ; she runs to
the bed-side, falls lovingly upon it, snatches up the prattler, presses
it to her bosom, and “My babe, my precious babe !" she cries, as
the great round tears gush up from her heart—her woman's heart,
after all! The little one answers with a gleeful chuckle, and in
another moment is busily engaged in drawing vitality from the
body of weakness—virtuous life from the paps of guilt! LOVE,
pure, dear, sweet and precious love reigns then and there ; just
such love as your mother felt for you, my reader, my sister or my
brother; just such love, in kind, but not degree, as prompted our
God to send his only begotten, because most perfectly begotten Son,
to earth for purposes of salvation and redemption ; just such love
as made the meek and lowly Nazarene toilsomely bear his cross up
the stony steeps of Calvary, and afterward groan and die thereon !
Surely that woman is not wholly lost, who feels even a little love
like this.
And so we see this woman in all her sin and misery. Is it All-
Right ? By the God of Heaven, no ; a pealing, thundering,
heaven-rending NO! It can never be right for a true woman, or
a true man to rest contented while such things be! Society-you
madam, and I, as integers thereof, must work, WORK, WORK, to
bring about a better state of things. It can never be right to
foster or in any way encourage the growth of such monstrous evils,

IT ISN'T ALL RIGHT.
21
as I, a woman who loves her sex and race much better than a party
or a philanthropic clique, herein so feebly attempt to outline and
depict. The modern declaimers for the doctrine “ Whatever is is
Right” could not have foreseen the fearful consequences likely to
arise from the enunciation of the great sophism. I am charitable
enough to believe they did not so foresee them.
Nevertheless the infectious malaria has gone out upon its soul-
destroying mission ; and doubtless there are scores of thousands
who, failing to perceive the utter rottenness of the fallacy, felicitate
cause he is at the head of all human founts and springs of action ;
therefore everything is as it ought to be. It is quite time the
calumny was refuted, and the people set right on this question,
and if this endeavor in the right direction shall have, as I believe
it will, the effect of depriving this new viper of its fangs, this de-
testible serpent of its sting, this asp of its poison, I shall not fail
to thank God with an overflowing heart.
Doubtless all things in the mere material and dumb, deaf, un-
thinking, unconscientious and unreflecting world, are right, and the
man or woman must be insane who would find fault, cavil at or
dispute the truth of the what in this light, confessedly, becomes an
axiom. My views on this aspect of the question, coincide perfectly
with that of the author of a wonderfully wise and common-sense
pamphlet on the use and abuse of the physical loves and passions,
published by its author* within the last year, who, speaking on the
“ All-Right doctrine, says:
“Of course, then, I cannot evade the conclusion, looking at the subject
from the stand-point of intuition itself, that God understood His business
well when He began the world ; and therefore when we take this lofty stand
to pass judgment on this “ All-Right” philosophy, we cannot help affirming
that, beyond all cavil, the man is correct who affirms that whatever is is
right.”
The author just quoted took good care, however, to say, that
his endorsement of the doctrine extended not one single step
beyond the mere physical world, its laws and action ; for when
the All-Right doctrine ventured beyond that and entered the vast
domain of custom, habit, philosophy, morals, and religion, then it
was wofully out of place, and unworthy of even respectful con
sideration. I fully agree with him in his restrictions and criticism
* A Doctor P. B. Randolph, of Boston, Mass.


NEW, EXTRAORDINARY, AND THRILLING WORK!
THE SOUL-WORLD:
AND
Dealings with the Dead!
BY CYNTHIA TEMPLE.
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Address, N. E. REFORM ASSOCIATION,
Boston Mass.


C2
Temple, Cynthia (Spirit).
collated 1-26-26
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