| Show I 1 WHAT GREW UP UNDER THE SHADOW OP THE CHURCH the would be reformers of utah who reside in the great cities of the east and west are advised to read the following statement which we clip from the saturday express and which prints a picture of real life as it maybe seen in any great centre of civilization in christendom one day last week we had occasion to go to one of the railroad depots in the heart of this great city we were to meet there a friend who was to come on an afternoon train we walked from our office to the depot and finding it a full half hour to train time concluded to extend our on r walk beyond and into a portion of the city with which we were unacquainted quain ted A very few minutes sufficed to bring us to a district of a character such as those of our readers who are unacquainted u nac quain ted with cities or whose acquaintance is limited to occasional trips to the principal centres bentres of trade in cities can have little conception of every second building was a house of prostitution as was clearly evinced by the number of young women standing at the doors or sitting idly at the windows gazan gazing into the tile street the remaining buu bun buildings dings aings were occupied led as saloons dance houses secondhand rand clothing clothie clo cio thim stores pawn shops and an tu ing OT tot equa ds of dirty children aror from A little toddler oi of two years to the dwarfed and stunted child of six or seven of both sexes but all of them too young to be of service in the pursuits of sin and crime by which their parents a living were amusing themselves as best they could upon th the sidewalk and in the alleyways among them were many whose faces showed intelligence but was not athy few who were not ragged 9 while a portion were barefooted although it was wa s in the first days of december and the writer was clad in overcoat and fur cap through this district and between the two rows ol of b buildings s devoted to such purposes and furnishing such a school for f future citizens of the republic flows a not inconsiderable sid erable tide of traffic tr antic aftic and laboring men and possibly laboring women must pass through it in going to ana and from froin their daily dally ton toil I 1 nave have said that not occupied c led by saloons ra rag picking r establishments lish ments dirty groceries pan pawnshops shops and the like of each a few lew except the saloons loons a which were numerous were h houses 0 sc 0 of f prostitution restitution with the latter I 1 include ze the church which stands near the beginning of the row and which if sins of omission are to he be taken into consideration is largely re sor lor the existence of the others oh no the church was not built there for the purpose of carrying a knowledge of christ to the these se sn sinful ua outcasts the church was built first as was proven by the evident age of the structure and by the fact bat that costly brown stone churches are not built in such localities or for such purposes no the church was first built and ader n the shadow of its steeple these pest est houses of sin and iniquity have reen been established and are now nourishing flourishing this could not have been possible if the church had taught as christ commanded I 1 and this is why we say the church is the worst house of prostitution there and now to those who are tempted to condemn us for sor our saying C we wish to put a question do you believe that this state of things have existed in that community if the church had taught both by precept and example the things 11 which christ taught lia iia had d the pastor of that church and its ts members not shown that they loved wealth and so called respectability I 1 better than they loved their fellow men and women had they in their daily business transactions practiced the great truths which christ taught ta aught do you ou believe that their influence would ive ave have been sunni sufficient clent elent to have kept that community pure if you do not then have you less faith in the influence of christs teachings upon society and the hearts of men than has the writer of this article for he believes that if the true doctrines of the great master were proclaimed from the pulpits of the land laud that no such plague spots would long exist anywhere much less spring to life under the very shadow of the churches the church professes to teach righteousness j ustice justice and mercy what it really does teach is vastly different of its pastors and sanctioned by its teachings the members of the church practice extort extortion ibn lun without mercy and weigh justice by statutory t ory dry enactments of which they have secured the passage by briber for theft they have substituted usury and for highway robbery the safer crime of stock watering caterin and corners on the necessaries of life and have built churches and paid aid pastors with the H money ioney of chic which they have thus robbed the people do dio they think they can rob without impoverishing their virtues io do they expect those whom they have robbed and impoverished will respect the christ who Is preached of in hurches churches built with the proceeds of the robbery does the church think that the victims of such subtle schemes for robbing as usury and stock watering will not attempt to match the cunning which devised hos schemes with the cunning cunnin of the pickpocket and sneak thief the tle intellectual strength which has forced upon society the acceptance of those infamous schemes by the force pharm of arm that wields the sandbag and the he bludgeon are they who have prostituted prostitutes their souls to devising or upholding such schemes for heaping up riches beyond their needs fit to preach repentance and purity to those who have prostitute ed their bodies in order to get bread the evidence in the case proves they are arc not it proves that the prostitution of their bodies by the victims of these unholy schemes for wholesale jobbe robbery is buethe but the natural fruit of the prostitution u of souls to the spirit of greed upheld and made respectable by it its lbs alliance aari with the church kletthe let the church seek as carefully to td preach christs doctrines as it does to preach respectability and show as much love for the bodies and souls sonis of the masses of the people as it does for the contributions of its wealthy members and such districts as we have described will forever disappear from the face of the earth |
