A HEATHEN’S STANDARD OF MORALITY.
Wall, Al Faizi hearn this story about the contoggler’s sufferin’s and the doin’s of the B. I. L., and I never see him so riz up about anything as he wuz with that.
Sez he—“This man who loved the child sold stuff to his father that he knew would make him liable to murder him? I cannot believe it possible that such a crime can be permitted.
“To one coming from a heathen land it seems incredible.”
“Yes,” sez I, “I’ve always said that it wuz a worse practice than any savages ever dremp of.”
Said Al Faizi—
“This is probably the one solitary instance that ever occurred where the death of a person much beloved was caused by a man for a few cents’ gain.”
“One instance!” sez I; “why, all over this broad country, day after day, and year after year, murders are brought about almost solely by this cause!”
He sithed deep and seemed to be turnin’ in his mind some possible remedy for this dretful state of things.
“Could not these men be persuaded to stop this trade that kills men in this world, and destroys their hopes of Heaven?”
“No,” sez I, “they can’t be persuaded; it has been tried by good men and good wimmen for years and years; they will keep on, driv by Selfishness and Ignorance, that span of bloody beasts!”
“Could not the law interfere?” sez he; “could not your great police force step in and punish these dreadful doings?”
Sez I, “It could, if it wuzn’t spendin’ its hull strength on devisin’ ways to protect the liquor traffic.
“The police might bring some on ’em up if it wuzn’t a-sneakin’ into side-doors a-partakin’ on the sly of the poison!”
Sez I, “It gits braced up in this way, so’s it’s ready to drag off to jail the poor, weak drunkards, made so by the saloons, and by the men who supply the saloons, and by the voters who make this thing possible, and by the goverment that sustains it.”
“Why does not your great nation interfere and compel them to stop it?” sez he.
“Because this great nation is in company with ’em,” sez I—“partakers in this iniquity, and takin’ part of the bloody gain.”
And my feathers drooped and my face wuz as red as blood to have to own up these things to a heathen, that wuz a-contrastin’ our ways with his own, which wuz so much more superior and riz up on the liquor question.
“Your holy church,” sez he, “why does not that, so great and powerful a force in this land, why does it not interfere and frown down these wicked ways? Why does it not pronounce its anathema on all those who commit this sin—this B.I.L., as I have heard him called, and men like him, who own saloons and supply the stuff that makes murderers?”
“This B.I.L.,” sez I, “is a piller in his meetin’-house. He sets in the highest place,” sez I.
“One of your holy men who take charge of the sacred things, permitted by your customs to carry on such iniquity? I cannot understand it,” sez he.
Sez I—“Nobody ort to understand it!” Sez I, “It is a shame and a disgrace, anyway!”
“Why,” sez he, “in my own country our men who take part in holy observances have to lead pure lives—to fast and pray continually. I cannot understand that one would be permitted to carry on an evil business six days during the week and touch the sacred things of your religion the seventh day.”
Agin I sez—“Nobody ort to understand it; it would be a shame to heathen countries!” sez I.
Sez he—“This very man who was the cause of all this wretchedness and crime and murder—he prays for the heathen, does he not?”
“I spoze so,” sez I.
“He carries round the vessel in which you gather the money to send to the heathen for charity and instruction?”
“Yes,” sez I; “but we call it the contribution plate.”
“Well,” sez he, “we refuse to accept his money; we refuse to take the money that man desecrates by touching.
“And,” sez he, “I will tell him so.”
And so I spoze he did—good, simple-minded creeter. He didn’t seem to have but two idees in his head—one to learn the will of God, and the other to do it.
And from what I’ve hearn sence I guess he did impress the B.I.L.
The idee of havin’ a heathen from heathen lands come to labor with him on religion kinder shook him up, from all I can hear.
I shouldn’t wonder if he did leave off his dretful trade, and come part way up to a heathen’s standard of morality.
But if he duz, no thanks are due to our own law or to our own gospel. They wuz both weighed in the balances and found wantin’.
If things are ever put on a more religious and noble and riz up footin’ it will all be caused by the missionary efforts of a heathen.
But to resoom.
Another thing about our contoggler interested Al Faizi dretfully. It wuz some talks he had with her about wimmen’s dress.
Annie wuz sensible, and hated the tight girtin’s indulged in by some of our females. And Al Faizi expressed the greatest wonder at the ignorance and folly showed by civilized wimmen.
The pressin’ in and destroyin’ all the vital organs by lacin’ in the waist. He expressed great wonder that a civilized people could commit this crime aginst the laws of health and the solemn laws of heredity.
He said when he contrasted the loose, comfortable robes of his own wimmen with the deformities caused by tight lacin’, more and more he wondered at the strange sights of civilization.
And then he said that in hospitals (for this strange creeter had peered round everywhere in search of knowledge), he had seen some of the terrible effects of tight lacin’ and high-heeled shoes.
He said that he had seen cases of blindness, caused by the last, and a destruction of the nerves.
In lacin’, he had seen dretful cases of internal diseases, incurable, and had seen terrible diseases in infants, caused alone by this destructive custom of the mothers—young infants who, if they lived, must carry a maimed body through life with ’em, caused alone by this habit.
Sez he, “Compare these high-heeled shoes with the loose, comfortable sandals that our own women wear. And these painful steel waists, that compress the lungs and heart, with our own women’s loose, flowing garments,” and he wuz astounded at our ways.
Wall, I agreed with him from the bottom of my heart, but sech is poor human nater that it kinder galded me to have my sect so sot down on and despised by a heathen. And I, kinder onbeknown to me, brung up their own veiled wimmen. “And,” sez I, “every country has its own shortcomin’s; I don’t like the idee of your wimmen havin’ their faces all covered up with veils.”
My tone wuz kinder het up and agitated.
But his voice wuz as sweet and calm as the evenin’ breeze a-blowin’ over a bed of Japanese lilies.
“Yes,” sez he, “perhaps we err in that direction, in veiling our women too much from the public gaze.
“But,” sez he, “I went to a grand party once in your great city Chicago, and to one also in Washington, and I see the women’s forms almost entirely disrobed and nude, while great folds of cloth trailed after them down on the floor. I knew not where to look for shame, for even when I was a nursing babe in my mother’s arms, I could not have witnessed such sights.
“And while we Eastern people may err in the direction of veiling the charms of our women-kind, methinks you Western people err still further in the opposite direction. At these public parties I saw the naked forms of the women, displayed with far more than the freedom of the courtesans in my own country, and my heart sank down with shrinking and wonder at the strange customs of civilization.”
I felt meachin’. I felt small enough to have gone to bed through my bedroom key-hole. But I thought I wouldn’t. I only sez—“Wall, I guess it is about bed-time.”
Josiah had already sought repose in our bedroom.
And Al Faizi got up at once and took his night-lamp, and bid me good-night with one of his low, reverential bows.
WITH ONE OF HIS LOW, REVERENTIAL BOWS.
I knew what he said wuz the truth. I had meditated on it. And in my own way I had tried to break it up—the tight-lacin’, train-dragglin’, high-heeled doin’s.
But, as I say, it galded me deeply to hear these truths discanted on by a heathen.
I love my sect, and wish her dretful well, and I can’t bear to see heathens a-lookin’ down on her.
And then Al Faizi hearn about how little children are put to work at a tender age down in the damp, dark mines, shet away from Heaven’s light, through long, long days, until their youth is gone and old age dims their eyes.
And he sot off for a distant part of the country to see the owners of the mines, and see for himself, and use his influence to have this evil abolished.
And then he hearn about how young children are bought in the great stores of the big citys.
He hearn all the tales of sin and woe connected with sech doin’s—worse than the Masacreein’ of the Innocents.
He sot out to once to investigate, and to warn, and to rebuke.
And he hearn with wonder and unbelief, at first, the story how children could sell their honor and all their hopes of the futer at a tender age.
And how this great nation permits this iniquity, and makes laws to perpetuate it, and shield the guilty men who indulge in this sin.
And all the horrows that gathers round them infamous words—
“The Age of Consent.”
As he talked with me about it, I could see by the deep fire that wuz lit up in his usually soft eyes his burnin’ indignation aginst this idee that had jest been promulgated to him.
Sez he—“You Christians talk a sight about the car of Juggernaut that rolls on over living victims and crushes them down, but,” sez he, “death leaves the soul free to fly home to its paradise; but your Christian country has found the way to ruin the souls of children, as well as their bodies. How can you sit down calmly and know that such a law is in existence? How can mothers happily watch their sweet little baby girls at play, and know that such a horrible danger lurks in the path their ignorant little feet have got to tread, such a snare is set for them?”
“They don’t set calm and happy—mothers don’t!” I bust out; “their hearts and souls are full. They cry to God in their anguish and fear, but they can’t do nothin’ else, wimmen can’t; men made this law, made it for men. Men say they don’t want to put wimmen to the trouble of votin’, and so they hender ’em from the hardship of droppin’ a little scrap of paper in a small box once a year, and give ’em this corrodin’, constant fear and anguish to carry with ’em day and night, like a load of swords and simeters, every one of ’em a-stabbin’ their hearts.”
“But how can men, fathers of young girls, make this law, or allow it to go on? Don’t they think of their own young daughters, who may be ruined by it?”
“They don’t make this law and vote for this law for their own girls—it is to ruin other men’s girls that it is made.”
“Don’t they know that the sword of retribution is two-sided—that it is liable to cut down their own beloved?”
“No, they don’t think at all; their vile passions clog up their ears and blind their eyes.”
“But your ministers, your holy men, what are they doing? I supposed their mission was to preach to sinners, and try to make the world better. I have heard them speak of many things in the high places where they stand to warn the people of their sins, and the judgment to come, but I never heard them allude to this. Why do they let this enormous crime go on unrebuked?”
“The land knows!” sez I; “I don’t; they go on year in and year out, a-preachin’ about Job’s sufferin’s, and Pharo’s hardness of heart, and the Deluge, and other ancient sins and sufferin’s all healed up and done away with centuries ago.
“Why, it is six thousand years sence Pharo’s heart hardened or Job’s biles ached, and the green grass of centuries has riz up over the sweepin’ swash of the Deluge, but they will calmly go on Sunday after Sunday for years a-preachin’ on that agony and that wickedness and that overflow, and not one word do they say about the hardness of heart of the men who make and permit this law, which makes Pharo’s hardness seem like putty in comparison, or the agony and dread this law brings to mothers’ hearts in the night watches, a-thinkin’ on’t, and thinkin’ of their own helplessness to protect the ones who they would give their life for. And the depths of wretchedness that overwhelms the souls this law wuz made to ruin! What are biles compared to these pains?
“But the clergymen, the most on ’em, go calmly on a-pintin’ these old sins and pains out, and the overflow of the Deluge, and drawin’ tenthlies and twentiethlies from ’em, and not one word about this cryin’ iniquity, so great that it seems as if it would open the very sluce-ways of Heaven and let a new flood down onto this guilty age that will allow sech crime to go on unrebuked.
“And philosophers will moralize on old laws and new ones, and their cause and effects; on Heaven and earth, and not seemin’ly cast a eye of their spectacles on this law of sin and shame that rises up right before their eyes. And scientists rack their brains to discover new laws and utilize old ones, but don’t make a effort towards discoverin’ a way to avert this enormous cause of woe and guilt, this fur-reachin’ and ever-increasin’ anguish and crime. And law-makers, instead of tryin’ to overcome it, try their best to perpetuate it and make it permanent; bend all their powers of intellect, band together, and use the cunnin’ of serpents and the wisdom of old Lucifer to git their laws passed and git Uncle Sam to jine in with ’em. Poor misguided old creeter, a-bein’ led off by his old nose, and made to consent to this crime and help it along!”
Al Faizi had been listenin’ in deep thought, and now he sez: “This uncle of yours I know him not; but your great Government, could it not interfere and stop this iniquity?”
“It could” (sez I, mad as a hen)—“it could, if it wuzn’t jined right in with them law-makers and helpin’ ’em along; and,” sez I, “now they’re tryin’ to git the poor old creeter to consent to a new idee. Some big clergymen and other wise men are a-tryin’ to have these wimmen, ruined by the evil passions of men, shet up in a certain pen to keep ’em from doin’ harm to innocent folks, and not one word said about shettin’ up the men who have made these wimmen what they are. Why don’t they shet them up? There they be foot loose. If they have ruined one pen full of wimmen, what henders ’em from spilin’ another pen full? But there they be a-runnin’ loose and even a-votin’ on how firm and strong the pen should be made to confine these victims of theirn. And how big salaries the men who keep these pens in order shall have—good big salaries, I’ll warrant you. Wise men and ministers advocate this onjestice, and laymen are glad to practise what they preach.
“There hain’t nothin’ reasonable in it; if a pen has got to be made for bad wimmen, why not have another pen, jest like it, only a great deal bigger, made for the bad man?
“Why, this seems so reasonable and right I should think that Jestice would lift the bandage offen her eyes and holler out and say it must he done! But no, there hain’t no move made towards pennin’ bad men up—not a move.”
Al Faizi sez—“I cannot understand these strange things.”
And I sez—“Nobody can, unless it is old Belzibub; I guess he gits the run on it.”
Wall, he took out that book of hisen and writ for pretty nigh an hour.
And that is jest the way he went on and acted from day to day.