Danger in and to Society.
It is not pleasant to think that society is permeated with evil to its core, but it is impossible to shut our eyes to facts, however unwelcome. The N. Y. Tribune, speaking of the prevailing and unseemly boldness manifested by the girls of this age, said:— “Why do these passions thus dominate our social life, like the seven devils who found the house swept and garnished, and entered in to take possession? We believe one reason to be that the barriers are lowered in domestic life to allow them to come in. Matters are discussed in the presence of young girls which once matrons blushed to mention. There is a familiarity with vice, an acceptance of it as a matter of course, shown in our newspapers, in our ordinary talk, in our pulpits, which debases the minds of the young. The very air in which our children live is poisoned. No legislation, no single reform, can touch this disease, any more than it could cure the malaria which slays its victims by the thousand. It is for each family, each clergyman, each mother, to clean and sweeten their own household.”