the light-house
after the storm.

I have drawn this pen picture of but a part of the shocking revelations
of that night, not only that my readers may know what kind of work I
often engaged in during my New York pastorate, but that they may also
know what kind of city I labored in. New York is not to-day in sight of
the millennium; it still has a fearful amount of vice and heathenism;
and the self-denying men who are conducting the "University Settlement,"
and the Christ-serving "King's Daughters," who are giving their lives to
the salvation of the poor in the Seventh Ward are doing as apostolic a
work as any missionary on the Congo. Nevertheless it is true that a "Cow
Bay," or an "Old Brewery," or a "Cut-Throat Alley" is no more possible
to-day in New York than the building of a powder factory in the middle
of Central Park. The progress in sanitary purification has been most
remarkable.

This narrative of the sanitary and moral reform wrought in the Five
Points reminds me of another good man whom the people of this city and
our whole country cannot revere too highly as a public benefactor. I
allude to Mr. Anthony Comstock, the indefatigable Secretary of the
"Society for the Prevention of Vice." I knew him well when he was a
clerk in a dry goods store on Broadway, and when he undertook his first
purifying efforts, I little supposed that he was to achieve such
reforms. It was an Augean stable indeed that he set about cleansing.
Fifty years ago our city was flooded by obscene literature which sought
no concealment. The vilest books and pictures were openly sold in the
streets, and an enormous traffic was waged in what may be called the
literature of hell. Such a courageous crusade against those abominations
and against the gambling dens, by Mr. Comstock--even at the risk of
personal violence and in defiance of the most malignant
opposition--entitles him to a place among our veritable heroes. At a
time when deeds of military prowess receive such adulation, and when the
"man on horseback" outstrips the man on foot in the race for popular
favor, it is well to teach our young men that he who takes up arms
against the principalities and powers of darkness, and makes his own
life the savior of other lives, wins a knightly crown of heavenly honor
that outshines the stars, and "fadeth not away."

The most unique organization that has been formed in our time for the
evangelizing of the lost masses is the "Salvation Army." When