ounds of our money. I cared
little for the value of money that was upon her. But what shall be said
of the weight of sin her attire represented? For, those costly garments
were the wages of sin--of hardened, shameless, damnable sin. Yet there
is not before me a finer dress or a fairer face. Will you, my sisters,
trust to the comeliness of visage and splendor of raiment in which such
a woman as this can outshine you? Will you continue to cast out your
devils by Beelzebub, the prince of devils? Be advised whilst there is
yet time. Ask yourself again and again, how can Satan cast out Satan?

"When sin is committed in a great city for wages, is there no fault on
the side of those who pay the wages? There is more than fault: there is
crime. I trust there are few among you who have done such crime. But I
know full well that it may be said of London to-day '_Thou art full of
stirs, a joyous city: thy slain men are not slain with the sword, nor
dead in battle_.' No. Our young men are slain by the poison of
Beelzebub, the prince of the devils. Nor is the crafty old subterfuge
lacking here. There are lost ones in this town who say, 'It is by our
means that virtue is preserved to the rich: it is we who appease the
wicked rage which would otherwise wreck society.' There are men who
boast that they have brought their sins only to the houses of shame, and
that they have respected purity in the midst of their foulness. 'Such
things must be,' they say: 'let us alone, lest a worse thing ensue.'
When they are filled full with sin, they cry 'Lo! our appetite has gone
from us and we are clean.' They are willing to slake lust with satiety,
but not to combat it with prayer. They tread one woman into the mire,
and excuse themselves because the garment of her sister is spotless. How
vain is this lying homage to virtue! How can Satan cast out Satan?

"Oh, my brethren, this hypocrisy is the curse and danger of our age. The
Atheist, no longer an execration, an astonishment, a curse, and a
reproach, poses now as the friend of man and the champion of right.
Those who incur the last and most terrible curse in this book, do so in
the name of that truth for which they profess to be seeking. Art,
profanely veiling its voluptuous nakedness with the attributes of
religion, disguises folly so subtly that it seems like virtue in the
slothful eyes of those who neglect continually to watch and pray. The
vain woman puts on her ornaments to do honor to her Cre