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the minds of the managers have been forcibly impressed with the truth of the observation, in substance, of one of the deeply depraved associates of guilt-that if fathers would but keep their daughters away from the circus and wax-work shows, there would be much less cause to weep over their degradation and depravity from the paths of virtue. Some of these instances have been very affecting: lovely, promising maidens, just arrived to their fifteenth or sixteenth year, and tenderly reared by a widowed mother, often amidst poverty, and through various difficulties, have unhappily visited these places, and after nights of absence, have returned to a heart-broken parent to acknowledge their dishonor, and to show that their sense of moral and Christian obligation has been so polluted, that they have determined to yield themselves to a wicked course of life. So much positive evil has been traced to these sources, that the managers deem it incumbent to suggest to the members of the society, whether application ought not to be made to competent authority to have them removed to a greater distance from the dense population of the city and liberties, or, at least, entirely closed after candle light."

In London, the grand and most efficient auxiliaries to all the systems of female defilement and immorality, are the theatres, the public houses, and the annual fairs. More juvenile thieves and harlots are made such, and commence their career in Greenwich, Camberwell, and Bartholomew fairs, every year, than in the whole of London. Among the second, but equally efficient class of auxiliaries in London, is sabbath-breaking—the public tea-gardens at the outskirts of London, always in the summer crowded to excess-the boats on the Thames, to Chelsea and Battersea-the short stages, and the boats to Greenwich, and the steam-packets.

3d. This letter furnishes some practical results of the principles of the Free Enquirer, one of whose editors is a professed prostitute. The collegian, a Deist, admired her doctrine, and often, in college, lectured in his own room, to students attached to him by his frankness and affability, usually beginning as a minister of the Lord Jesus, and ending as one of Satan's confessed imps. Admitting the truth of her story, I know the collegian, and have exhausted years with him in the pursuit of literature and science. As a classical scholar, and a clever speaker, he bids fair to arrive at eminence in a liberal profession. It is desirable that men of promise should be firm pillars of freedom, and the advocates and exemplars of all that is amiable, and lovely, and of good report. Such is the strength of my attachment to this youth, that I cannot cease to cherish the fond hope, that he may yet be such a man. Still, as he adopted and disseminated

those principles termed "liberal," at so early a period, the practical lesson it furnishes is, that brothers should shun the society of those men whose principles encourage the destruction of female purity, lest they become agents in their sisters' ruin; for when men cherish, and propagate such principles, it is not strange that our ears are offended, and our hearts horror-smitten at the repeated accounts of fathers' prostituting their own daughters.

4th. Presidents of colleges, and professors in the same institutions, will be reminded by this fact of the responsibility of their stations, and of the influence of their example, and lectures, on the principles and conduct of their pupils.

5th. In the light of this fact, college students will see the propriety of avoiding profane, profligate classmates, and students of liberal principles; for this Collegian and the female's brother were class-mates, and intimate friends; and one of the collegiate vacations he spent with her brother, at her father's house, at which he saw her for the first time. She respected the friend of her brother, and could do no less, for it was a brother who introduced him to her. So it seems that there is principle concerned among sceptics, in rewarding friendship.

6th. When parents look at this fact, their souls will be concerned for the safety of their sons in college, where there is so much to poison the moral sensibilities of youth, and to corrupt their habits. I have seen at college the sons of pious parents, and have seen those sons ruined there. Before I left my alma mater, two collegians were brought to their graves by licentiousness. The shattered body of one fell a loathsome mass into its parent earth. And here it is to be remarked, that the most noted debauchees were the most noted for scepticism and liberal principles—an inevitable consequence. Indeed it is necessary that men living in vice, should ease their goaded consciences by the false doctrines-that there is no hell, and that Jesus Christ is no more than a mere man of illicit origin. So Tom Paine taught, and Tom Paine's Age of Reason, I find, is the Bible of these men, even in college. Therefore parents will perceive the necessity of pure and undefiled principles, and religion, within college inclosures. Our colleges are our galaxy of literary celebrity and hope. Let them be borne in mind at the altar.

No. 12.

THE MINISTER'S DAUGHTER-A MERCHANT'S WIFE.

(An extract from my diary of October 11, 1830.)

"As we were approaching the usual field of our daily labors at the Five Points, two once beautiful women stood at the junction of Anthony, Orange, and Cross streets, the union of which forms five angles in the circumjacent blocks, and gives the name of Five Points to that portion of the city in its immediate vicinity. The women were quarreling, and reproaching each other in the most abusive and foul language. A group of persons soon assembled around them. The feelings of one became ungovernable. She dexterously drew her fist, smote the other on her cheek, and sent her reeling backwards forcibly to the side-walk, where her body struck a lamp-post, around which it bent, while her head repeated its dizzy blows on the pillar. Recovering, the creature returned to her antagonist, with a heart boiling with fiendish passions. The battle was renewed. I entered the throng and drove them off the ground. Each was eager to tell her grievance, but there was no time to hear their story; for before they were out of the street, a woman from a company of girls of the town, standing at the corner of the street, came in haste to me, and said, Sir, there is a dead man in that house,-pointing to it. He died last evening. They did not do to him the thing that was right. Will you go there and see to it? She passed on before us, and we were led through a narrow, deep, dark alley, to a flight of steps which she ascended, conducting us to an upper apartment, where the corpse was. Strange sights. A small, low, foul, and ill-scented room, whose furniture consisted of one stool, one tub, one ragged tick, through which the straw was escaping, two blankets, one tea-pot, two tea-cups and saucers, two rusty knives and forks, one relic of a corn-broom, and one table. On that table lay the dead man. His wife, if his wife she was, with adulterous eyes bursting from their sockets, and scarred by ill usage, all agitation, and clamor, and wrath, made the heroine among the women by the dozen. Here we took our stand and preached to them Jesus Christ, and read to them the word of God. Some of them went out of the room as soon as we commenced. Others came in. Some of them were coming and going all the time we remained there. My brother was called away by Mr. C to attend the prayer-meeting appointed yesterday in the adjacent house, in which it is commonly reported that there are sixteen or twenty strange women. My feelings were strange-indescribable. A good reason for it. A man hazards his good name by loitering in the vicinity of these places of moral defilement. What then do I hazard by having such a multitude of these creatures around me, in this polluted den of thieves? But my soul is grieved. I know that God, the just Judge, is omniscient, and that whatever profligates, to screen themselves, impute to me, will neither rob me of conscious innocence, or involve

me in the displeasure of my Maker. So I stood firm in conscious innocence of evil purpose, and was strengthened in the discharge of my duty.

Then I resolved to continue to visit the haunts of these guilty offcasts, if, perchance, God would grant repentance unto life to some of them. The example of Christ encouraged me, and I proceeded with my discourse. They were attentive. What a fine opportunity to impress on their minds the scenes of a future day-a day of retribution! I preached to them on death and the resurrection-sin and the atonement-heaven and hell. And added, You feel that vice and pain are united, and you know that you are unable to separate them. There is pure pleasure in heaven, and in the service of God there is peace and delight. Think of hell, in which there is pain, and of the service of Satan, in which there is distress. If you will serve the devil on earth, pain must mingle in your illicit pleasures; and the more vicious you are, the more miserable you are, and will be. Think of your midnight reveling 'midst cursing, bitterness, fighting, drunkenness, theft, and murder-of your terrific dreams, and the shrieks of the lost echoing in your ears, in the lone hours of nightof your own criminal conduct, and resolution to commit suicide and murder-of your parents who loved, educated, and trained you to virtue, now broken-hearted, and sorrowing, going down to the grave of sisters afflicted-of brothers mortified-of relatives grieved-of your bodies abused-of your souls injured-of your neighbor and country wronged-of God offended, and of heaven lost. You already anticipate, yea, taste the agonies of the pit. Look! Here on this table lies a man; it is his body; his soul is now rejoicing in heaven, or is tormented in hell. In him behold your own future situation. Even now you cannot sleep quietly, or look death unaffrighted in the face. Oh! the guilty conscience that pursues you-how it turns your sports into pains. "It is true," said one, "there is great and continual pain in this life. Our mirth is often forced." Why then do you not seek pleasure in the discharge of your duties to God, to man, and to yourself? In righteous living there is no pain. It is sin that creates pain. Now there is pleasure in a sense of pardoned sin-in justification by faith in the Son of God. It is sweet to the soul, at night, to lie down to rest with a purified conscience and reconciled mind. Great peace and pleasure have they that love the laws of God, and meditate upon them in the night-watches. They shall see God's face in heaven. And why will you not seek for that purity and peace which flow from a union to Jesus Christ?

Hear what is written-" And the Spirit and the bride say, Come, and let him that heareth say, Come, and let him that is athirst, come; and whosoever will, let him take of the waters of life freely. Wash you, make you clean, put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes, cease to do evil, learn to do well, seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red as crimson, they shall be as wool."

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At the close of the meeting I walked towards the door through which I had entered, and was stopped by a female, who said, "Oh, sir," as she grasped my hand, and tears flowed from her eyes, “I am a minister's daughter. I am ruined. I have no home-no friend."

The history of this female is interesting. In her maiden days she learned the trade of an artificial flower and dress maker. A merchant wooed and wedded, and afterwards forsook her, for the society of another woman. Troubles increased, and she drove them off by intemperance. Her house was soon broken up, her carriages sold, and she thrust on the town. In a cellar kept by the black woman that once served in her kitchen, she found a shelter, and a master who drove her with a cowhide, that often left its marks for weeks after its application to her back.

In the winter of 1830 she was sent to the penitentiary, and placed in the hospital, where her softest bed was straw. I visited her one morning. Her food had frozen, and she desired a favor of the superintendent, which was promptly conferred. Since that time her imprisonment has been repeated several times. One Saturday evening, in the middle of October, she entered the office of a medical gentleman where I was, and bewailed in bitterness her sad condition. On the previous evening a stranger gave her two shillings, with which she bought some medicine, and paid for her lodgings. Being destitute of money, and having no home, I advised her to go to her relations in this city, and to cast herself on them. "Oh," said she, "I am ashamed! I am afraid. They don't look at me. I see them sometimes, but they don't see me. They don't know me, I am so changed."

Poor soul, how touching her story was! It went to my heart. She concluded to go and do as I advised her. Her relations are in good circumstances, and move in a highly reputable circle.

This woman is a clergyman's daughter, and it is not a solitary case. There are daughters of other clergymen now living on the town, in this city. It is also said that the widows of a few clergymen are living in the same manner. It is certain that one of them has been lately rescued. The daughters of some elders, and deacons, and church members, residing in various parts of the country, are on the town, in New York. And worse than all, even certain members of churches, of different denominations, but. principally from the Methodist and Romish sects, have been taken from the lowest holes in the city, and led to the New York Magdalen asylum. No rank or profession in life has escaped the march of this monster of horrid mien. Intellectual power, and a refined education, adorn many of the inmates of infamous tenements.

The subject before me addresses itself to the church of Jesus Christ. The Son of God, who hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet like fine brass, hath something against his church, because it suffers certain persons, unreproved, to teach and to seduce some of his servants to commit fornication. And this is not the worst; for the church, as a body, has ceased to teach men that licentiousness is sin. A fastidious taste excludes from the pulpit sermon even a strong remark on the sin of debauchery, while this same fasti

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