holy writ, for our Savior says, "that all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven men wherewith they shall blaspheme; but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven, neither in this world, nor in the world to come," evidently showing that there are sins which may be forgiven in the world to come, although the sin of blasphemy cannot be forgiven. Peter, also, in speaking concerning our Savior, says, that "he went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which sometimes were disobedient, when once the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah," 1 Peter, iii, 19, 20. Here then we have an account of our Savior preaching to the spirits in prison, to spirits that had been imprisoned from the days of Noah; and what did he preach to them? That they were to stay there? Certainly not! Let his own declaration testify. "He hath sent me to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised." Luke, iv. 18. Isaiah has it-"To bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness from the prison house." | Isaiah xiii, 7. It is very evident from this that he not only went to preach to them, but to deliver, or bring them out of the prison house. Isaiah, in testifying concerning the calamities that will overtake the inhabitants of the earth, says, "The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage, and the transgressions thereof shall be heavy upon it, and it shall fall and not rise again. And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall punish the hosts of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth. And they shall be gathered together as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in prison, and after many days shall they be visited." Thus we find that God will deal with all the human family equally, and that as the antediluvians had their day of visitation, so will those characters, referred to by Isaiah, have their time of visitation and deliverance; after having been many days in prison.

The great Jehovah contemplated the whole of the events connected with the earth, pertaining to the plan of salvation, before it rolled into existence, or ever "the morning stars sung together for joy," the past, the present, and the future were and are, with Him, one eternal now; He knew of the fall of Adam, the iniquities of the antediluvians, of the depth of iniquity that would be connected with the human family, their weakness and strength, their power and glory, apostacies, their crimes, their righteousness and iniquity; He comprehended the fall of man, and their redemption; He knew the plan of salvation and pointed it out; He was acquainted with the situation of all nations, and with their des tiny; He ordered all things according to their several circumstances, and the laws of the kingdom of God, whether in this world, or in the world to come.

The idea that some men form of the justice, judgment, and mercy of God, is too foolish for an intelligent man to think of; for instance, it is common for many of our orthodox preachers to suppose that if a man is not what they call converted, if he dies in that state, he must remain eternally in hell without any hope, infinite years in torment must he spend, and never, never, never, have an end; and yet this eternal misery is made frequently to rest upon the merest casualty. The breaking of a shoe-string, the tearing of a coat of those officiating, or the peculiar location in which a person lives, may be the means, indirectly, of his damnation, or the cause of his not being saved. I will suppose a case which is not extraordinary: Two men, who have been equally wicked, who have neglected religion, are both of them taken sick at the same time; one of them has the good fortune to be visited by a praying man, and he gets converted a few minutes before he dies: the other sends for three different praying men, a tailor, a shoemaker, and a tinman; the tinman has a handle to solder to a can, the tailor has a button-hole to work on some coat that is needed in a hurry, and the shoemaker has a patch to put on somebody's boot; they none of them can

go in time, the man dies, and goes to hell: one of these is exalted to Abraham's bosom, he sits down in the presence of God and enjoys eternal, uninterrupted happiness, while the other, who was equally as good, sinks to eternal damnation, irretrievable misery and hopeless despair, because a man had a boot to mend, the button-hole of a coat to work, or a handle to solder on to a saucepan.

The plans of Jehovah are not so unjust, the statements of holy writ so visionary, nor the plan of salvation for the human family so incompatible with common sense; at such proceedings God would frown with indignation, angels would hide their heads in shame, and every virtuous, intelligent man would recoil.

If human laws award to each man his deserts, and punish all delinquents according to their several crimes, surely the Lord will not be more cruel than man, for He is a wise legislator, and His laws are more equitable, His enactments more just, and His decisions more perfect than those of man; and as man judges his fellow man by law, and punishes him according to the penalty of that law, so does the God of heaven judge "according to the deeds done in the body." To say that the heathen would be damned because they did not believe the Gospel would be preposterous, and to say that the Jews would all be damned that do not believe in Jesus would be equally absurd; for "how can they believe on him of whom they have not heard, and how can they hear without a preacher, and how can he preach except he be sent;" consequently neither Jew nor heathen can be culpable for rejecting any testimony but that which is sent of God, for as the preacher cannot preach except he be sent, so the hearer cannot believe without he hear a sent preacher, and cannot be condemned for what he has not heard, and being without law, will have to be judged without law.

When speaking about the blessings pertaining to the Gospel, and the consequences connected with disobedience to its requirements, we are frequently asked the question, what has become of our fathers? Will they all be damned for

195

not obeying the Gospel, when they never heard it? Certainly not. But they will possess the same privilege that we here enjoy, through the medium of the everlasting Priesthood, which not only administers on earth, but in heaven, and the wise dispensations of the great Jehovah; hence those characters referred to by Isaiah will be visited by this Priesthood, and come out of their prison upon the same principle as those who were disobedient in the days of Noah were visited by our Savior and had the Gospel preached to them by Him, in prison; and in order that they might fulfil all the requisitions of God, their living friends were baptized for their dead friends, and thus fulfilled the requirement of God, which says, "Except a man be born of water, and of the spirit, he can in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven;" they were baptized of course, not for themselves, but for their dead.

Chrysostum says, that the Marchionites practiced baptism for their dead: "After a catechumen was dead, they had a living man under the bed of the deceased; then coming to the dead man, they asked him whether he would receive baptism, and he making no answer, the other answered for him, and said that he would be baptized in his stead; and so they baptized the living for the dead." The Church of course at that time was degenerate, and the particular form might be incorrect, but the thing is sufficiently plain in the Scriptures, hence Paul, in speaking of the doctrine, says, "Else what shall they do, who are baptized for the dead if the dead rise not at all? Why are they then baptized for the dead?" I Cor., xv, 29. Hence it was that so great a responsibility rested upon the generation in which our Savior lived, for, says He, "That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth from the blood of righteous Abel, unto the blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you all these things shall come upon this generation," Matthew, xxiii, 35, 36. Hence as they possessed greater privileges than any other generation, not only pertaining

to themselves, but to their dead, their | sin was greater, as they not only neglected their own salvation but that of their progenitors, and hence their blood was required at their hands.

And now as the great purposes of God are hastening to their accomplishment, and the things spoken of in the Prophets are fulfilling, as the kingdom of God is established on the earth, and the ancient order of things restored, the Lord has manifested to us this duty and privilege, and we are commanded to be baptized for our dead, thus fulfilling the words of Obadiah, when speaking of the glory of the Latte r-day: "And Saviors shall come

up upon Mount Zion to judge the remnant of Esau, and the kingdom shall be the Lord's." A view of these things reconciles the Scriptures of truth, justifies the ways of God to man, places the human family upon an equal footing, and harmonizes with every principal of righteousness, justice and truth. We will conclude with the words of Peter: "For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles." "For, for this cause was the Gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit."

IV.

Dr. Napheys, after speaking of the estimated number of prostitutes in the city of Philadelphia as being "twenty thousand," and those of Cincinnati as "seven thousand," says:" But Chicago has the unenviable notoriety of being the city in the United States where this degraded class is most numerous. Prof. Edmund Andrews, M. D., of that city, estimated that, in 1857, there was one public prostitute to two hundred and thirty inhabitants, one hundred more than twice as many in proportion to the population as in New York or Philadelphia, and more than in any of the corrupt capitals of the old world, Paris not excepted!" Now the population of Chicago in 1870 was, in round numbers, three hundred thousand. If the increase between the years 1857 and 1870, was at the same ratio as between the latter year and 1880, she would have had, in the year 1867, about two hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants. Now, let us suppose that one in five of these were adult females, or say fifty thousand. Compute the same per cent. of "private" prostitutes as we have found existing in New York and Brooklyn, and add to those called "public," and we arrive at the startling conclusion that about one out of every

five adult females in that great commercial centre was, at that date, among the unfortunate ones-the degraded, dishonored creatures of man's unholy passions. And Chicago is a "Christian" city!

asserts that

"Dr. Sanger, a physician in New York who has had favorable opportunities for investigation in that city, the whole population of public women changes once in four years; in other words, that every year one fourth of them disappear, and are replaced by fresh accessions to the fated crowd. What becomes of this fourth which in some way vanishes from the knowledge of the police? Dr. Sanger does not hesitate to say that most of them die." Reciting the intoxication, exposures, diseases, and abuses to which the fallen are subject, he continues: "But this, though serious enough, is by no means the worst effect. It is the almost moral death of the prostitute which is the darkest result of her mode of life. The woman who once loses her virtue can never recover her self respect; but she, who, for money, has prostituted her body as a trade, seems to lose hold of all moral principle, and even natural affection. She consorts by necessity and preference with thieves, gamblers and the vilest classes of men. She rarely makes the effort to rid herself from

the jaws of death, even when assistance is offered. The ancient heathen wrote over the doors of brothels Hic, habiat voluptas-Here pleasure dwelleth; but the Christian knows" (though he does not seem to realize it)" that a far truer inscription were that which Dante says is writen over the gates of hell--

'Leave every hope, ye who enter here.' The author continues: "The most striking exhibition of their unnatural debasement is the almost entire lack of maternal feeling in these women. Their avocation, by its constant excitement, prevents conception, as a rule, and this is a beneficent law of nature, for the wretched offspring of such mothers" (and a thousand times more criminal fathers) "could hope for nothing but misery. When born, the infants are usually sent to a baby farming establishment, or killed outright. The latter does but anticipate a fate almost certain at the hospital. The infant mortality on Ward Island, New York, is over ninety per cent. Very nearly all die. And the result is the same in Boston, Philadelphia, London and Paris. The causes, in most instances, are hereditary syphilis and neglect."

"In speaking of the effects of the social evil on women, we have been repeating common-places which every reader knew or suspected. But there remains an exhibit of its consequences to be made, which is often lost sight of, or imperfectly apprehended; we mean its effects on the men who support it. This is, if anything, more deplorable than on the women. The words of the wise king" (a polygamist) "are every whit as true now as they were, and we would that ministers of the Gospel had the nerve to choose them oftener as a text:

"The lips of a strange woman drop as honey comb, and her mouth is smoother than oil; But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword: her feet go down to death, her steps take hold on hell; remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house; lest thou give thine honor unto others, and thy years unto the cruel; lest strangers be filled with thy

197

wealth, and thy labors be in the house of a stranger; and thou mourn at the last when thy flesh and thy body are consumed.'* "Whoso is simple, let

him turn in hither; and as for him that wanteth understanding, she saith to him: Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. But he knoweth not that the dead are there, and that her guests are in the depth of hell.' (Prov. v. ix.) "

"And who are the guests? The gambler, the thief, the policy dealer, the ruffian; and with these, the college student, the bank clerk, the member of the fashionable club; aye, and also the father of the family, the husband of a pure wife, the head of the firm, the member of the church" (and sometimes its sanctimonious minister too), "all these, every night, in all our great cities. Can any of these think to escape the contamination? Vain chimera! It is as certain as death. If nothing else remains, the moral stain is indelible,

But often there are physical consequences more immediately troublesome than this. The prevalence of contagious diseases among these women is shocking. It is safe to say that one in three or four is suffering under some communicable form of them. And how fearfully,' exclaims the Rev. Dr. Muhlenburg in his sermon on the 'Midnight Mission,' 'is the wrath of God seen in these physical consequences! The most loathsome sight which the diseased human body in man or woman exhibits, the most horridly disgusting, are the living corpses in which victims of lust are putrifying to their graves.'

This is indeed horrid, a fearfully blighting curse. But who is responsible for it, man or woman? Unhesitatingly we answer, Man, and he knows it. Lay not the cowardly charge to the account of dependent woman, whom God gave to man to love, protect, and keep pure, commanding them to multiply and replenish the earth. How he has abused the trust! Having power to cherish and protect, he has brutalized and degraded her, branding her with shame and corrupting her with diseases too loathsome

to name. Instead of preserving her, as God intended he should, as the honorable mother of his children, he has crushed out of her heart natural affection while aiding and abetting in the murder of her bastardized children, and then stands back horrified at her lack of tender emotions, when he knows the fruits of his lust-her illegitimate offspring-have not only perished cruelly on Ward Island, in the "Foundling Hospitals," and "Baby Homes," but have found watery graves in the public reservoirs, rivers, and streams; in the canals whose current turns the wheels of factories and carries the burdens of commerce. They have died upon the high ways, in the byways, in the dark allies, hall ways and ash pits; pitched upon dung heaps and thrown among the rubbish as a thing of nought. Ye Christians! Talk no more about the Hindoo mother who, from religious motives, casts her innocent child into the turbid waters of the Ganges, when thousands of mothers in our fair land, prompted by irreligious motives and who are not ignorant, destroy their children, and that, too, with the knowledge of the father of those children. The British Government prohibited the former and the civilized world applauded the act. Would not the civilized world do likewise if our great nation of the United States of America would put a stop to the latter in our own country? Would it not be more Christianlike, more pleasing to God, and more of a national honor to do this instead of harrassing a few thousand "Mormons," located on the backbone of the Continent, who do not, and who will not destroy their children whom they claim as a heritage from the Almighty? When Christians who wink at and practice these things come to judgment, there will be "weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth."

We further quote from Dr. Napheys' work as follows: "Divines, philosophers and physicians have united in the expression of the opinion that prostitution is a nesessary evil, not only in the sense that it is unavoidable by any known regulation, but that it is necessary to the

interest, even to the morality of society at large! St. Augustine, the eminent father of the Latin church, in his book De Ordine, says: 'Suppress prostitution and you will plunge society into libertinage.'

'I regard prostitution,' says Mr. Acton. as an inevitable attendant upon civilized and especially packed populations. When all is said and done, it is, and I believe ever will be, ineradicable.' And to like effect the Rev. Dr. Muhlenburg, of New York: The social evil is ever in proportion to the wealth and luxury of a community.' ”

Well, indeed, may our author conclude that such opinions are "discouraging;" but in hopes to find some way by which to stop this scourge of so-called civilization, he adds that they “are not to be accepted as the solution of the problem;" and then continues: "The doctrine of St. Augustine above quoted seems to us monstrous, and contrary to known facts. In what countries are the obligations of marriage most sacredly respected? Is it in those where brothels are most abundant? We trow not. Are the large cities, where such dens are located, more conspicuous for marital chastity than the rural districts where none exist? The proposition is an absurdity." Under the heading of "How can it be stopped?" the Doctor alludes to a number of theories, and among them, he says "the boldest is that advocated by a Christian philosopher in a work published in 1869, called Monogamy and Polygamy Compared. This anonymous writer maintains that Christian precept and example both advocate a plurality of wives, that such a system has really no objectionable features, and that by absorbing all the female population into the married state, it effectually kills prostitution by depriv ing it of every material.

Valuable for its practicability is the plan of repression suggested by Dr. George J. Zeigler, of Philadlephia, in several medical periodicals, in 1857. He urges that the act of sexual connection be ipso facto the solemnization of mar riage; and that when any such single act can be proven against an unmarried man