That Eurasian

by Aleph Bey

I was rather ashamed to tell of my ruse, the white lie (though I never knew how any lie could be white), I told in order to gain admittance, but my old friend said that in catching rascals, as in trapping rats, one has to use a little chaff and deception, so I concluded that he did not think any the worse of me for my little trick.

Yet I have always hated to lie, it strains me so, and after it I feel a weakness, as if my moral system had been wrenched, so I refrain, that is, as much as possible.

M. Le Maistre was as good a listener as I knew him to be a good talker, though these two traits seldom go together. After I had finished by telling him of the apparent remorse of the man—I do not like to write man, as applied to him, as it seems a degradation of that word, neither do I like to use epithets all the time, so will have to let it go—he exclaimed, “Served him right; served him right. Such a scoundrel as that should be put into the public stocks to be jeered at by every beggar who passes, as long as he lives, and after death, we need not say anything of that, for he will have all he deserves. God is not just if he will abate one particle of punishment due to such sinners. I know that some, the church people would censure me for such an expression.

“There is a lot of nonsense talked about eternal salvation. Why, they would people heaven with scoundrels, reprobates of earth, suddenly made into saints. There cannot be two laws of God to directly contradict each other. This is what I mean. There is a man of fair education, exemplary in every way, an excellent Christian. I am not making a case, for I knew just such a man. He is seated one evening with his wife and children on a veranda in front of his house. A man for some slight grudge comes, and without a word, shoots, and the father and husband falls dead in the arms of his wife. The criminal is tried, found guilty, and sentenced to be hung. The priest has been with him. On the scaffold he tells the crowd that he has repented, believes in Jesus, and is going to be happy among the redeemed.

“The church affects to believe him, that all his past has been forgiven, that the blood of Jesus has washed him white as snow, and that he is going straight to become a saint in heaven.

“But what about the family? Deprived of their support, guide and best of earthly friends, they are reduced to want and beggary. The mother is crushed to death by her hard toil and care. The boys without education and the training of a father, fall into vice and sin. Their children inherit their defects and so on for generations; aye to the very end. With the family the evil consequences of that man’s crime are eternal. How can we by any torture of justice suppose him to be saved from all the consequences of his sin and to be happy in heaven, while they suffer all the miseries inflicted by his crime while they are upon earth, and an eternal loss and degradation?”

I think I said that my friend, when he got started was like the rushing waters in a mill-race when the gates were open. As I enjoyed his talk, I had no inclination to shut down the gates. Of his own accord he made a halt. I took occasion to refer to my story and said that the only thing I questioned, was that perhaps I had been a little severe on my unworthy parent. He quickly said, “Not a bit of it, not a bit of it. With such a man, hardened, encased in sin, you have got to be severe in order to touch him at all. Had you gone to him otherwise than you did, he would have smiled in your face, rubbed his hands with glee over the tricks of his youth, and the follies of his old age. Had my father served me as yours did you, killed my mother, and made his children outcasts, I would by the God who made me, I would have done more than you did, very much more.”

He used some other very forcible expressions that I forbear to give. I saw the old man’s blood was up, so waited without a word. He began again. “I am a father, I have daughters, but all happily married, thank God, but for years it was the torture of my life as to what might happen to them. They went into “society,” as it is called, and what these upper class men, as they are styled, polished and skilled in all the sly arts of flattery and seduction, might do, I did not know. They are educated, trained in vice as they are in grammar and mathematics. I was just reading an account of a candidate for Parliament, being accused by his opponents of impudicity when he was at the Charterhouse school. There was issued a writ for slander and when the case came on, a paper states, “there was a shocking light on the morals of the great public schools, at any rate twenty-eight years ago.” I was astonished not long ago when an Englishman, lately from home, said that he did not believe there was a boy in England over fourteen years of age, but was guilty of immorality. One prominent school was called ‘Sodom on the Hill,’ because of its wicked practices. A gentleman told me that when he was in the university, one of the greatest in England, there was no set that could keep up with the divinity students in immorality and flagrant blackguardism. Great God! what a condition of society! Where are the fathers and mothers and sisters of these boys? What can be the condition of the homes of England? What can we expect of men who were such boys?

“I know this is not a pleasant or agreeable subject for conversation, but like some other things in life it ought not to be avoided on that account. If I were to write about this, not a paper would publish my article. They are too much absorbed with politics, in detailing the dresses worn at some party or ball, with wars, intrigues, or the events in society, to give any attention to a subject on which the very preservation of society depends, and not only that, but the destiny of souls. Some say we ought never to refer to such things to corrupt the minds of the young. Such people are so simple-minded, as to have forgotten all about the inquisitiveness or the passions of their own youth. The young! They know too much, taught by the example of their elders and the vicious stories in novels, of the intrigues and seductions in society life. They are attracted, allured, rather than repulsed and warned of danger. Another class, and a numerous one, the guilty, the culprits themselves, would frown and declare it was too nasty for anything. They certainly would not like anything that would reflect on their own wicked conduct, or show up their own impurities.

“Impurity is the greatest evil of this age. It is worse than cholera, or any pestilence, for these only destroy the bodies, but this undermines the moral nature, and destroys the souls of mankind. We give little attention to this sin of all sins. Fathers and mothers let their children grow up without a word of advice or warning. ‘It is such a delicate subject, you know,’ is the excuse. The clergy discourse on everything, but are as dumb as mummies about this devil of lust. Only a few days ago the chaplain was over here, and I asked his advice and made some statements about some young men, whom I wished to save from ruin, when he interrupted me by saying, ‘M. Le Maistre, these things are too horrible, I wish you had not told me a word about them,’ and away he went, this man who ought to be a sin doctor, a soul curer and saver of souls, went away to gossip with a lot of women at a croquet party.