would have little merit in it, since it would involve none of those tolerant virtues, which are among the highest Christian attainments.-But if, in order to this Union, it is only necessary, that Christians of different denominations, notwithstanding their minor differences, or mutually tolerating them, should adopt a common creed, and submit themselves to a common authority, and thus constitute themselves one body, for the better exemplification of the spirit of Christianity, and the better attainment of its ends, then is it no otherwise impossible, than for the carnal mind to be subject to the law of God. The inability of Christian sects, to become united on these grounds, is that moral inability, which so far from palliating guilt, constitutes, as we are often told, its very essence. It is sometimes said, that if Christian sects were united into one body, they would sink into a torpid inaction,—that the higher principles of love, duty, and faith are not powerful enough, when left to themselves, to move the Church, but need to be energized by the earthly principles of sectarian rivalry and jealousy ;— As if the Church, though born of Heaven, must owe Such views as these, so dishonouring to Christianity, are directly contradicted by the history of the United Brethren. Superiour to the motives of party interest, and utterly disowning them, they have laboured with unexampled assiduity, perseverance and success in extending the kingdom of Christ, sustained only by the all-controlling motive of gratitude to Him, who gave his life a ransom for them. But we forbear to enlarge on the lessons which might be derived from the example of this venerable body of Christians. May it not be in vain that this example has been presented! May the kindly influence of its principles and example be widely felt, in softening the asperities of religious controversy, so long as the defence of the truth against the threatening assaults of errour shall make controversy necessary, and in preparing the way for that happy consummation when, in the highest and most comprehensive sense, the whole Church of Christ throughout the world, shall constitute one well-organized, harmonious band of United Brethren ! ART. VII. MORAL REFORM SOCIETIES. THE principles and plans of any Society, having for its professed object the welfare and salvation of man, cannot but be interesting to all who desire and expect the ultimate removal of the woes of this wailing world. They are interesting in a two-fold point of view; that, if right and salutary, the principles may be circulated and the plans encouraged; or, if they tend rather to disaster than benefit, that they may be discouraged and condemned. Though it be an invidious office to condemn a project professedly benevolent, yet both truth and duty sometimes demand that this office should be discharged. Though the desire of reform be the sign of a benevolent intention; yet this desire may be developed in such spurious modes of action, as will prove injurious, not only to the cause directly advocated, but, by the force of sympathy and imitation, to every kindred, benevolent enterprise. The necessity of examining the principles and plans of Moral Reform Societies is, also, now peculiarly urgent. Through their journals and agents they are loudly and frequently calling upon all Christian people to band themselves in this enterprise; and calling, not only in the language of persuasion and reasoning, but in that of insinuation, satire and denunciation against all who will not conform themselves to the model which they have set up, who withhold their names and influence from the project of directly attacking licentiousness and its allied sins; and so calling, as if neutrality were a sin,-as if the time which the judicious generally take for the examination of the merits of any cause were fully expired, as if the season of probation with these societies and their principles were passed, and they stood self-vindicated, in their righteousness and fitness to the proposed ends: so that only long-fostered prejudice, fastidious delicacy, consciousness of guilt, or a direct alliance with licentiousness, could oppose their principles, or refuse to propel their designs. The challenge has been given, and silence will be interpreted as acquiescence, or ignorance, or timidity, or prejudice, or guilt. It will be decorous, then, to inquire, whether the question of duty, as to the sin of lewdness and the mode of its extirpation, has been, in fact, definitively settled for the Christian public by these Moral ; Reform Societies and their advocates. If it has been settled, then, our hearts and hands must be given to the work if it has not, then our reasons for demurring to their extraordinary claims and pretensions, ought to be fully and fairly stated, that it may be seen that silence, dissent and opposition may be attributed to other sources than prejudice or guilt. We have ample opportunity for obtaining a full knowledge of the principles, plans and expectations of these Societies. Their Journals have fearlessly avowed their whole creed, social, moral and religious. They have given us all the principles they advocate, with the basis of these principles; all the plans they adopt, and the reasons for these plans; all the results they expect to achieve, with the grounds of expectation. From the authorized publications of these Societies, we have obtained all our information as to their doctrines and designs. A preliminary statement of the principles of these antilicentious, or, by euphemism, Moral Reform Societies, will be useful to our argument. Licentiousness, say they, is one of the most frightful evils with which our country is cursed. The gospel assures us, that all sin will finally be eradicated, licentiousness, of course, is included. But how? Will the preaching of the distinctive doctrines of the gospel accomplish this? No, for the tide of sin has only swelled higher during the last fifty years of evangelical preaching. The direct preaching of the gospel is, then, too tardy a mode of uprooting the evil; and besides, licentiousness is one of the greatest obstacles to this preaching, and (by force of the comparison) an obstacle must be removed before that which it opposes can find entrance. Hence licentiousness must be extirpated, before the gospel, which is the great remedy for it, can have access. Having convinced themselves of the truth of this preposterous misstatement, the next inquiry still concerns the how? Whatever can be done, must be done, is the motto which defines at once their duty and their power. Is there not, they inquire, some more powerful agent than the preaching of Christ? In the moral power, and moral means of the present day, in the system of direct attack upon a special sin, and extraordinary efforts for its suppression, is found the type of those principles and plans which will, can and must, in their view, restore the whole world to seemliness of behaviour and purity of life. These, in kindred enterprises, have proved signally successful. Though by availing themselves of these, they do not directly preach Jesus Christ, yet they are engaged in preaching the gospel; because the gospel is peculiarly severe in its condemnation of this sin, and its injunctions as to the observance of chastity;-and thus they are preparing the way for Christ, very much as John the Baptist did. Though there is no recorded instance of any sin being entirely destroyed by these moral means, yet there is every reason to expect, that some one will be, some time or other. Thus is Christ forsaken, as the grand remedy,-and in what do they find a substitute? In exposure of the vice,-for the poet says, "Vice is a monster of so horrid mien, As to be hated only needs be seen."-In a right state of public sentiment, this will be an effectual cure. So they proceed to reform public opinion. In the application of the principle of combined action. If they can get every body to pledge themselves to be chaste, there certainly would be no licentiousness, provided they all mean to do as they say they will. They propose, still further, to call the female sex, who are the greatest sufferers, and who give the tone to society, to decided action upon this subject. Ignorance is the parent of crime; especially, ignorance of the arts of the abandoned, is one of the chief causes of the prevalence of this vice. So, by the press, they propose to instruct all men, women and children in the enormity of the evil: that their minds may be well garrisoned against both direct and indirect assault. They have "little faith in cure" all their provisions are chiefly preventive; if they publish the statistics or unveil the facts of this sin, it is that they may prevent it; if they organize societies, this is also for prevention. To their holy cause, there can be but two sides. On the one hand will be arrayed the pure and enlightened; on the other, those who are ignorant, prejudiced or guilty. So all shall be praised and quoted who favour their system, and all who are reluctant to engage with them must (duty demands it) be cashiered, as wilfully blind, or unaccountably prejudiced, or secretly conniving at licentiousness. There is a strange fastidiousness in the community as to the mentioning of facts and the hearing of narrations connected with this vice. This fastidiousness must be branded as false delicacy, and removed by reprobation or satire, antecedent to efficient action or to the formation of public sentiment. This enterprise is to be upheld, not simply as a moral, or as a benevolent work; but strictly as a religious movement, for the success of which the whole church is responsible. The expected result from all this system of means is, the final extirpation of licentiousness. And, finally, these principles and plans are all Biblical.The Bible is professedly the text-book of these Reformers in all their movements. By it they stand or fall. Do these principles and plans approve themselves to common sense and philosophy? Are they authorized by the Bible? Will they effect a radical cure of the evil? Or are they as absurd, unscriptural and pernicious, as they are novel, and till recently, unheard of? The following subjects for examination may be selected from the above exposé of their system,-1st. The alleged criminality and impropriety of the so-called false delicacy. 2d. The propriety of forming societies for this special object; with particular reference to the demands made upon the female sex to take a conspicuous part; and also, to the stress laid upon "public opinion" as a means of reform. 3d. The system of exposure, so fearlessly advocated as efficacious for the prevention and removal of this evil. I. Fastidious delicacy. Declamation against this is the entering wedge to all the proceedings of Moral Reform Societies. That delicacy on this subject which has heretofore so honourably characterized American society, is alternately reviled, satirized and reasoned against. What is "false delicacy?" Is it a pretension to what does not really exist? Or is it a right feeling in a morbid state? That it is the former cannot in common honesty be supposed. If the latter, what are the symptoms of its diseased state? As far as we can divine, false delicacy, in the sense of our reformers, is an unwillingness to listen to, or to read, the details of licentiousness. The sign of the morbidness of delicacy, is the stopping of the ears to the details of seduction, or the statistics of libertinism. What is this refusal an indication of? Of conscious guilt? Say rather of a mind which recoils from what is impure; or say, still further, it is a signal of the opposition felt, instinctively felt, by every pure mind, to the exposures of Moral Reform Journals; and the reason of the aversion which is manifested by these societies to this, so-called, fastidiousness, stands distinctly revealed. Their whole system requires an attack upon this VOL. III. 79 |