penter at
his plane; the sailor at the tackling; the merchant at the customer;
the customer at the merchant; the printer at the miserable proofsheet;
the accountant at the troublesome line of figures;--swearing in the
cellar and in the loft, before the counter and behind the counter, in
the shop and on the street, in low saloon and fashionable bar-room.
Children swear, men swear, ladies (!) swear. Profanity from the lowest
haunt calling upon the Almighty, to the fashionable "O Lord!" of the
glittering drawing-room.

This whole country is blasted with the evil. Coming from the West,
a gentleman sat behind two persons conversing. Profanities were so
frequent in the conversation of the two persons in front, that the
gentleman behind took out his pencil and paper and made a record. The
profanities filled several sheets in the course of two days, at the
close of which time the gentleman handed the manuscript to the persons
conversing. The men said: "Is it possible that we have uttered so
many profanities in the course of two days?" The gentleman said:
"Yes."--"Then," said one of the men, "I shall never swear again."

I make no abstract discussion. I hate abstractions. I had rather come
right out and have a talk with you about a habit that you admit to be
wrong. This habit has grown from the fact that the young often think
it an evidence of manliness. There are thousands of boys and youth
who indulge in it. I hear children along the street, but just able to
walk, practising this iniquity. They cannot talk straight, but they
get enough distinctness to let you know that they are damning their
own souls and the souls of others. Oh! it is horrible to see a little
child, the first time it lifts its feet to walk, set them down on
the burning pavement of hell! Between sixteen and twenty years of age
there is apt to come a time when a young man is as much ashamed of
not being able to deliver an oath as he is of the dizziness that comes
from his first cigar. He has his hat and coat and boots of the
right pattern, and there is but one thing more now to bring him into
_fashion_, and that is a capacity to swear.

So there are some of our young men surrounded by an atmosphere of
profanities. Oaths sit on their lips, they roll under their tongues,
and nest in the shock of hair. In elegant drawing-rooms they abstain
from such utterances, but fill club-room and street with their
immoralities of speech. You suggest the wrongfulness of the