“But how can men, fathers of young girls, make this law, or allow it to go on? Don’t they think of their own young daughters, who may be ruined by it?”
“They don’t make this law and vote for this law for their own girls—it is to ruin other men’s girls that it is made.”
“Don’t they know that the sword of retribution is two-sided—that it is liable to cut down their own beloved?”
“No, they don’t think at all; their vile passions clog up their ears and blind their eyes.”
“But your ministers, your holy men, what are they doing? I supposed their mission was to preach to sinners, and try to make the world better. I have heard them speak of many things in the high places where they stand to warn the people of their sins, and the judgment to come, but I never heard them allude to this. Why do they let this enormous crime go on unrebuked?”
“The land knows!” sez I; “I don’t; they go on year in and year out, a-preachin’ about Job’s sufferin’s, and Pharo’s hardness of heart, and the Deluge, and other ancient sins and sufferin’s all healed up and done away with centuries ago.
“Why, it is six thousand years sence Pharo’s heart hardened or Job’s biles ached, and the green grass of centuries has riz up over the sweepin’ swash of the Deluge, but they will calmly go on Sunday after Sunday for years a-preachin’ on that agony and that wickedness and that overflow, and not one word do they say about the hardness of heart of the men who make and permit this law, which makes Pharo’s hardness seem like putty in comparison, or the agony and dread this law brings to mothers’ hearts in the night watches, a-thinkin’ on’t, and thinkin’ of their own helplessness to protect the ones who they would give their life for. And the depths of wretchedness that overwhelms the souls this law wuz made to ruin! What are biles compared to these pains?
“But the clergymen, the most on ’em, go calmly on a-pintin’ these old sins and pains out, and the overflow of the Deluge, and drawin’ tenthlies and twentiethlies from ’em, and not one word about this cryin’ iniquity, so great that it seems as if it would open the very sluce-ways of Heaven and let a new flood down onto this guilty age that will allow sech crime to go on unrebuked.
“And philosophers will moralize on old laws and new ones, and their cause and effects; on Heaven and earth, and not seemin’ly cast a eye of their spectacles on this law of sin and shame that rises up right before their eyes. And scientists rack their brains to discover new laws and utilize old ones, but don’t make a effort towards discoverin’ a way to avert this enormous cause of woe and guilt, this fur-reachin’ and ever-increasin’ anguish and crime. And law-makers, instead of tryin’ to overcome it, try their best to perpetuate it and make it permanent; bend all their powers of intellect, band together, and use the cunnin’ of serpents and the wisdom of old Lucifer to git their laws passed and git Uncle Sam to jine in with ’em. Poor misguided old creeter, a-bein’ led off by his old nose, and made to consent to this crime and help it along!”
Al Faizi had been listenin’ in deep thought, and now he sez: “This uncle of yours I know him not; but your great Government, could it not interfere and stop this iniquity?”