Is not this plain speaking? and could it be bettered as an expression of a militant Christian’s hatred and horror of what is debasing and foul?—I think not. We are not all given the power of feeling the intense loathing for a very generally committed sin which is manifested here. A life in the world and of the world induces a tolerance which is very often laziness and cowardice. We are not to hate the sinner, of course, but only the sin, but which of us cares to inveigh against the vice of a friend? Savonarola was not a popular parson, though Santa Maria del Fiore was always crowded when he was in the pulpit. We ought to be thankful for such bludgeon-sturdy words as these which show us the carrion-passions which war against the soul in their true light.
I know, you know, most men know, how extraordinarily easy it is to become familiar with our vices so that in a short time they become no vices at all, but just little pleasant failings which we share with some of the best fellows in the world. And all becomes dim and misty in the shadowy thoroughfares of thought, while it is only now and then—perhaps never at all—that some bugle-breeze blows over us and sounds réveillée to the sleeping soul.
If we are sensualists, though we don’t realize it, we always live as though we were immortal; immortal in the sense that we shall never die and once more be born. Yet it is a strange truth in life that the man or woman who is converted to a clean life from sins of the body, has often more power than any one else to warn and exhort against sensuality. It is the man from whose eye the mote and beam has been removed who can speak most convincingly of the horrors of the dark. “Experto crede!” he calls out to mankind, and out of the uncleanness is brought forth meat. Let us see what Aurelius Augustinus—that old Father of the Church we call Saint Augustine—has to say of this danger and sin which we are considering. We all know what the Saint’s early life was like, what was the life of a young man at a Pagan University in the fourth century. From his eighteenth year until he was thirty-two the Saint whom we revere lived in open vice at Carthage. On Easter Eve, April 387, he was baptized, and tradition tells us that then the massive harmony of the Te Deum was composed. No theologian has influenced the mind of Christendom more greatly than this man, not only by his writings, but by the spectacle we find in them of the fervour and devotion of his inner life. Remember that he knew all the bitter knowledge of lust, and hear how he writes of those who would prevent conception:—
“Quia etsi non causa propagandæ prolis concumbitur, non tamen hujus libidinis causa propagationi prolis obsistitur sive voto malo, sive opere malo. Nam quid hoc faciunt quamvis vocentur conjuges, non sunt, nec ullam nuptiarum retinent veritatem, sed honestum nomen velandæ turpitudini obtendunt.”
And of those who use drugs to prevent the birth of children, he further says:—
“Aliquando eo usque pervenit hæc libidinosa crudelitas, vel libido crudelis, ut etiam sterilitatis venena procuret.
“Prorsus si ambo tales sunt, conjuges non sunt, et si ab initio tales fuerunt, non sibi per connubium, sed per stuprum potius convenerunt. Si autem non ambo sunt tales audeo dicere aut illa est quodam mode meretrix mariti, aut ille adulter uxoris.”
What is to be done? What is the duty of Christians, and how shall they combat this evil? Unless it is to spread and spread till every part of our natural life is infected, something must be done. The Neo-Malthusians are not only teaching married people how to avoid the responsibilities of marriage, but they are teaching unmarried people to do so as well. This is a fact which must not be lost sight of, as more than one clergyman has pointed out. If fear of consequences is removed chastity becomes more than ever threatened. If there is the wish and inclination to sin, and that wish is only not gratified because inconvenient results may lead to discovery, it is true that the moral value of people in such a case is small. But a general recognition of the fact that it is easy to sin will have incalculable influence for harm on those who are as yet on the border-line between the claims of self-gratification and control. Public sentiment becomes lax and unstrung. Simultaneously with the decline of the birth-rate the newspapers show every day that the old ideal, the sacred English ideal of the family is departing. Our greatest living novelist says openly, “Certainly one day the conditions of marriage will be changed. Marriage will be allowed for a certain period, say ten years.” In many parts of America, where the President is ceaselessly urging his countrymen to denounce and give up Neo-Malthusian practices, the home has already disappeared. From a large collection of information and statistics I take only one example, quoted in a leading English newspaper. There is no need for a single word of comment, save that I do not vouch for the truth of the newspaper report which, in its very appearance, proves my point.
“Mrs. Le Page, a New York lady who has just married her eighth husband, crystallizes her experience in life.
“Five of her seven former husbands are still alive, and they have just sent messages of encouragement to the new incumbent. The other two have died.
“Mrs. Le Page’s maiden name was Mary Johnson, and she was the daughter of a Connecticut farmer. She was only fourteen, but well grown for her age, when she contracted a runaway marriage with a seventeen-year-old Danbury clerk named William Wakeman. In accordance with the American practice of hyphenating family names, she became Mrs. William Johnson-Wakeman. It was a happy marriage for three days, and then her family interfered, and the marriage was annulled.
“Two years later, while in a New York elevated train, she made the acquaintance of Mr. Harry Saunders, a rich contractor’s son and a commercial traveller. After two days’ courtship she became Mrs. Henry Johnson-Wakeman-Saunders, and lived in perfect happiness, accompanying her husband on his travels for three years, until he died.
“Shortly afterwards the lady married a railroad man, and was happy as Mrs. Joseph Johnson-Wakeman-Saunders-Powers, until he was killed in an accident. She next married a Jersey grocer, but the bonds being severed in the Divorce Court, she married a hotel-keeper, becoming Mrs. John Johnson-Wakeman-Saunders-Powers-Lindley.
“Being once more disappointed, she was again freed by the Divorce Court, and continued her search for the ideal husband, whom she thought she had found when she became Mrs. Thomas Johnson-Wakeman-Saunders-Powers-Lindley-Godfrey. But John Godfrey compared unfavourably with his predecessors, and the Divorce Court restored her freedom. On the following day she became Mrs. Wilbury-Johnson-Wakeman-Saunders-Powers-Godfrey-Gay- (she says that the name too well described his character, as she shortly proved to the satisfaction of the Divorce Court) Crowther. This husband soon revealed his true character, and she had no difficulty in regaining her maiden liberty.
“Mrs. Benjamin (many hyphens) Le Page believes that her husband, who is English born, and has made considerable money in this country, is the long-sought ideal, but if he does not prove so—she is only thirty-nine, and there is still plenty of time to continue the search. She says that she had long wished to marry an Englishman, having been favourably impressed by what she had heard of their high qualities as husbands. She intends giving the experiment a thorough trial. So far, it has proved satisfactory, but she says that it is impossible to form a correct judgment of any man until she has been married for two or three weeks.
“Marriage, she says, is such a lottery, but it is the blessed state which it is ordained every woman shall occupy. Her life’s mission is to find a pre-ordained mate, and she would not be deterred as many women, by a first failure, but should try and try again until successful.
“‘My experience,’ she says, ‘is that women make a mistake in waiting for a man to do all the wooing. When I was young and inexperienced I fell into that error, and consequently I had several disappointments. But when I was thirty I realized that a woman’s duty—well, right—was to do the wooing.’”
Again I ask what is to be done to influence public opinion, to rouse Christians in the same way that the National Conscience has been roused upon the Drink question?
An enormous amount of good can be done by the personal efforts and example of those in a position to influence others—pastors, doctors, Christian layworkers. Yet is it an impossible hope that some day a league or confraternity to fight the battle may be started? Are there no people of sufficient weight and importance in the world’s eye to come forward and do this, no folk whose place will secure them a hearing, whose convictions will interest and convert others?