well as home-made periodical literature, until they do not actually
know what is decency of speech. With fairy fan to their lips they
utter their oaths, and, under chandeliers which discover not the
faintest blush, recklessly speak the holiest of names. This is helped
on by the second glass of wine, that is _perfectly harmless_; and
though no one dare charge her, being so finely dressed, with anything
like intoxication, yet there comes a glassiness to the eye, and a glow
to the cheek, and a style of speech to the tongue that were not known
before she took the second glass that was _perfectly harmless_.

One wild, terrific wave of blasphemy is sweeping over the land. See
the effects of this widespread profanity in the increasing perjury.
If men in ordinary conversation so commonly use the name of God, is it
wonderful that in the jury-box, and in the alderman's office, and
in the custom-house so many swear falsely? Notice the way an oath is
administered. They toss the Bible at a man, and in the most trivial
way say: "So help you God--kiss the book." I suppose enough lies are
every day told in the custom-house to sink it. Smuggling, although it
be done against positive oath, is in some circles considered a grand
joke; and you say some day to your friend, "How can you sell those
goods so cheaply?" and your friend says with an eye-twinkle, "The
Custom-House tariff was not as high on those things as it might have
been." Men more easily break their solemn oaths than formerly. What
strange verdicts juries do sometimes render! What peculiar charges
judges do sometimes make! What unaccountable slowness sheriffs and
their deputies sometimes exhibit in the execution of their writs! What
erratic railroad enterprises suddenly pass at our State capitals! What
wonderful changes Congress makes in the tariff on liquors!

What is an oath? Anything solemn? Anything appealing to the Almighty?
Anything stupendous in man's history? No! It is "kissing the book!"
In a land where the name of God so often becomes the foot-ball of what
are called respectable circles, how can we expect that it can excite
any veneration when, in the presence of county clerk, or alderman, or
judge, or legislative assembly, it is used in solemn adjuration? This
habit lowers, bedwarfs, and destroys the entire moral nature. You
might as well expect to raise harvests and vineyards on the side of
belching Stromboli as to have any great excellency grow upon your soul
when