THAT is a shallow and very partial view of our nation's depravity which sums it all up in slavery. Our slavery is bad enough, and we have no thought of measuring its guilt, or even of putting it in the scales against our national profanity. We only beg to suggest to our readers that in the day when God shall call our national sins to account for judgment, there may be a fearful score to settle on the side of our profaning his holy name! Perhaps he may think best to show us, and with us all other nations as well, that none can heap scorn on his holy name and go unpunished!
There is but too much reason to regard profane swearing as a national sin. It characterizes our American people. We fear that more than a majority of our male population, of age to speak God's awful name, are wont to take it in vain. Horrible to think of, some females prostitute the natural delicacy of female character by profane swearing! Boys learn the habit early, and glory in it as a manly accomplishment. We have seen men who rarely try to excel in anything noble, yet vie with each other to outvie the company, ingenious to invent more awful oaths, and pour them out in more horrible variety and blasphemy than their fellows!
A line to measure the depth of the nation's guilt in this matter we may find in the popular estimate of it as a sin and a shame.
Here, then, what are the facts? How do the masses estimate the sin and shame of profanity?
Of all the thousands and millions guilty of this sin, who blushes for it? Who is ashamed to have it known? We might almost ask, Who accounts it a damage to a man's general reputation? Does it disqualify a candidate for responsible pecuniary trusts, or for promotion in military life, or even in civil?
Of course, in these questions some abatement must be made where a pure Christianity prevails. The churches mostly disapprove of profane swearing; yet we fear church members sometimes vote into the highest offices men of most profane lips.
But with our eye on the masses who are outside of Christian churches, and mostly remote from their influence, what is the sentiment as to the intrinsic sin and shame of profane swearing? Do they spurn the imputation as they would that of petty theft, or fraud or lying? Do they not more often, especially in their own circles, glory in their shame? A slight incivility of manners or address, a sin of ignorance, it may be, or the least possible disrespect to the present company, shall be accounted an offense more disgraceful than the greatest outrage a man could offer his Infinite Maker! It is almost by general consent that ungodly men agree to cast out the names of God from the pale of their respectful regard, and use them only as things to scoff at, and as helps to vent their spleen and petty irritations! Alas! alas!!
Did ever a heathen nation so profane the names of its gods? Did the old Roman armies go forth to battle, cursing the names of Mars and Jupiter, and venting their excited feelings in vilifying the Higher Powers, whose aid they consciously needed and solemnly invoked? Nay, verily; such inconsistency, such madness, never lay to the charge of old Rome! Her armies were not atheists; to a fearful extent, ours are!
And can it be supposed that the great God whose name alone is holy and reverend, will pass this awful sin unnoticed? In the day when he shall call this nation to solemn account, may there not be a fearful score on the page which records our national profanity—where blasphemies and proud disdain and scorn of God are laid up for future retribution?
There is yet another point of light from which to contemplate this sin. Solemn oaths have their place in the functions of civil government, in the proceeding of courts and in the administration of justice. It is not easy to see how a free government can be administered without reliance on the solemnity of the oath. But what becomes of this solemnity when a man accustoms himself to swear in far more solemn and awful words, every hour of his waking life, and without the first thought of the majesty of that God whose name he foreswears! Does not such profanity become a rolling stone under the very pillars of our national fabric? Is it not a fearful state of things when the solemn oath has lost its hold on the conscience and finds no strength in the fear of the great and dreadful God, but rests only on the civil pains and penalties of perjury! Will his oath hold the profane witness to truth before a court of justice, or the profane officer to integrity in his public trusts? Are we aware how fatally our national profanity is sapping the foundations of our republican government?