Procuress to the lords of hell.”
Of all arts there is but one more hated of men than yours, that of the procuress, who flings shrinking innocence into the arms of lust. You may only mean to strip away from man his temporal possessions. This is atrocious. But, my friend, do you not see that the secondary result is to put the souls of men and women into the grip of the demon, whose unsated lust ever asks for more? Above the brand of gambler must be stamped “Procurer for Perdition,” a soul-hunting hound, who, with the filthy pack, runs helpless ones into the dungeon of the lords of hell.
Rise up, shake off this dark enchantment—dash down the dice, shred the cards into the flames—pass out into the pure air, and while there yet is hope ask heavenly help to break your heavy chains.
Yours is the very insanity of crime; like the imprisoned eagle who might swim the blue sky and bathe in the sun, you are caged in a dungeon’s walls. Nature cannot furnish nor the imagination create a figure of speech to parallel your unfortunate condition.
Let us go back to first principles and ask, “What is a man? What was the Maker’s design when he fashioned man?” After creation was completed from chaos to order, from darkness to light, from the lowest polyp, through crinoid batrachian, reptile, fish, bird, to the highest mammals, God paused to consider what likeness the Prince of this earthly creation should wear. He was to be the link binding heaven and earth, animal and angel, material and spiritual, so that an unbroken chain of life might exist from the loftiest archangel[archangel] to the lowest monad, related to both spheres and completing all; his body from one world, his soul from the other.
“What fashion shall he be formed in?” Was the question which seemed to give the Creator pause. None of the lower creatures would do for a model, as he must govern them and be superior to them. Surely some of the angelic or seraphic ones will be chosen as the pattern! They were mighty, beatific and holy; in favor with God and obedient to his behests.
If some shining one from beside the throne, who had been wrapt in the serene presence of the Uncreate, had been chosen, what an honor to be like him! But such a one is not selected. As our Father in Heaven thinks of his Child that is to be, we hear the mysterious declaration, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” And so it was.
Consider the supreme honor done us in this act. God could find no being but himself fit to be thy pattern, and wilt thou for whom he passed the hierarchs of glory by, stoop to such groveling ingratitude as to ignore him and humiliate thy brother man?
Oh, that I could inspire you to cast these cords far from you, and rise toward that mark set for you by our kind and ever present Lord. Come out from among these Philistines.
I would as soon expect to grow a plant under the dripping of vitrol or in the fumes of sulphur as in such a place, and if you willfully persist in impiety, you must expect retribution to overtake your impenitence and the last door of hope will be shut.