Suppose God were pleased always to punish execration by granting the prayer of the wicked, how many wretches should we see with limbs and other members rotting off; with eyes melting out of their heads, and every other part essential to life, withering and consuming at their own unhallowed request! Could any be astonished if the earth were to open, and swallow up those depraved beings, who dare thus to provoke the vengeance of Heaven, and wantonly defy the majesty of God, as it did formerly upon Kora, Dathan, and Abiram, with all their followers? I recommend every one of you to read this interesting account; you will find it, I think, in the 16th chapter of the book of Numbers.
The next and last subject for our consideration is prostitution, which is more intimately connected with the text than any of those which I have attempted to discuss in the foregoing observations. Your behaviour on board has been so excellent, and in this particular so very exemplary, with scarcely even the shadow of suspicion, that it may seem cruel and unjust to touch upon it again. I confess to you candidly it has this appearance to myself; and were it not for the temptations to which I know many of you will be exposed, and the infamous arts which brutal sensual men will employ to seduce you from the pure paths of virtue and honour, into the devious ways of sin and death, I should not now awaken in your minds those agonizing feelings, which I hope and believe have long been tranquillized by the soothing influence of sincere repentance.
Believe me, my friends, I would most willingly spare any remark that can tend to excite a painful thought in any of your minds, could I in any other way strengthen your virtuous intentions, and the resolutions you have formed to resist every approach of vice, how alluring soever the appearance may be in which it can present itself. I am much more disposed to reprobate the atrocious artifices which designing men wickedly employ to ensnare innocent young girls into their hellish grasp, than to condemn the unsuspecting confidence which is too often reposed in their most serious promises and solemn oaths, and which has proved the ruin of many a well inclined and really virtuous woman. In the ill-advised steps which led to your present situation, and now cover you with shame and sorrow, have not many of you to accuse some foul seducer, some partner in your guilt, some false friend who deceived you with promises of pleasure and wealth, perverting your understanding, and blinding your judgement with idle dreams of ambition and happiness? And did not this deceitful monster, after he attained his own vile purpose, and plunged you into an abyss of misery, desert you? Nay, worse; have not the very men to whom you sacrificed your honour, been often the first to turn your enemies and open accusers? I am well assured that they have done so, and your present confusion corroborates the unhappy statement.
Such are the enemies by whom you may expect again to be assailed, to be again betrayed. If you value honour and happiness in this life, if you love virtue, if ever you expect to meet a just God in judgement, I conjure you, by every thing sacred, listen not to their artful tales,—be not entangled in their destructive net, for hell is open to receive every wretch whom they make captive.
I believe there are very few of you who have not pondered over your crimes; and your reflections, I doubt not, have given life to feelings of the deepest sorrow;—your tears have flowed,—tears of unfeigned penitence will ever be precious in the sight of your Maker;—I hope they will obtain for you mercy, forgiveness, and grace.
Are any of you acquainted with the indescribable sorrows to which unfortunate females are exposed? Yes; some, I fear many of you are; and can any of you think of following a life so accursed, without shuddering? It is impossible for those who happily are unacquainted with this worst and lowest species of infamy, to form any adequate idea of the misery of prostitutes—driven forth by an abominable procuress into the streets, where they are obliged to endure the pelting of the storm, and, while they shiver under the inclemency of a frosty atmosphere, are compelled to affect a smile of happiness which their hearts cannot feel, and to solicit the unhallowed embrace of a beast whom their souls abhor. The dismal receptacles to which they retire, after the weary and worse than slavish hardships of their nocturnal excursions are ended, are not less forbidding. They are forced by necessity to herd with loathsome wretches to procure a little morbid warmth, tainted perhaps with noxious effluvia, on a miserable uncovered pallet, where they lie crowded together, ghastly with hunger, stupified with poisonous spirits, rotting with loathsome disease, and nauseous with accumulated filth.
This is not an imaginary picture. Professional avocations have often made it necessary for me to witness scenes if possible more shocking. Many a time has my heart bled while contemplating the ravages of disease on young creatures withered in the spring of life, who once were lovely, and cheerful, and innocent, and good. I have a better opinion of you all, than to believe that your minds are so degenerate, that your souls are so truly base, as to wish to spin out a wretched existence, and die the most hopeless of all deaths in such polluted charnels. Would any of you wish a younger sister, or a beloved innocent daughter, brought up in a school so detestable? I am sure you would not. If there be any one present with feelings so unnatural, I hope God will give her a new heart. Are your own souls, then, less precious than those of your friends? Why should you strive to bring down that damnation on your own heads, that you could not wish to fall on your worst enemy?
Let me advise you, my friends, to give the foregoing thoughts some portion of reflection; they merit at least your attention, for they have been arranged entirely for your use, and put together under circumstances of considerable difficulty. Look back on your past lives, from which you may learn an excellent lesson, and then cast a glance on that portion of time which you may yet be permitted to enjoy; whether it shall be long or short, God only knows. What part will you then wish that you had acted? Not that of idleness and profligacy, assuredly.
It has been observed to you, by my good friend Mr. Reddall, that by good behaviour in the colony you may make reparation for the injury done to society, and benefit those of your fellow creatures who may have the misfortune to be similarly situated with yourselves, by securing to them the blessings which you have so happily enjoyed. If it can be satisfactorily proved that religious instruction is capable of working an entire and permanent reform in those ill-fated mortals who have forfeited the protection of their country’s laws, the attention of Government, and of the Nation generally, will be directed to the investigation of means to lessen the hardships they have hitherto been doomed to suffer; and the demonstration of a fact so desirable would give infinite delight to those benefactresses who take so much interest in your welfare. Can your minds be so depraved, as ever to lose the remembrance of the noble exertions used by these amiable ladies, particularly Mrs. Fry and Mrs. Pryor, to restore your peace of mind in this life, and secure your happiness in the next? Can any of you be insensible to that benevolent zeal which induced Mrs. Fry to visit you in this ship at times when several of her nearest relations were on their death-bed? Perhaps at this very moment she is supplicating Heaven that you may become thoroughly reformed, and, although the morning of your lives has been clouded by guilt, that joy and gladness may surround your setting sun. Perhaps also, at this very time, some of you have a parent, brother, sister, or some dear friend, lamenting your folly, and in secret silence offering the unavailing tribute of heart-rending and corroding tears over your sacrificed virtue. Are your souls so hardened that you will not do your best to dry up their tears? or will you by vicious practices infuse new bitterness into the cup of misery, and bring down their grey hairs with sorrow to the grave?
During my stay in the colony I shall have opportunities of hearing how you behave, of which, as well as of your behaviour during the voyage, I promise you I will make a faithful report to your friends in England, if God be pleased to allow me life to return thither. Virtue is now calling on you to walk in her salutary paths, and I beseech you, my friends, do not reject her heavenly invitation. Listen to the divine promise in 2nd Corinthians, 6th chapter, 17th and 18th verses, “Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord; and touch not the unclean thing; and I will raise you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.”