Rensselaer Union, Volume 10, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 May 1878 — Our Swearers. [ARTICLE]

Our Swearers.

The Inter- Ocean would like to see an organization started in this city’ on the red-ribbon plan, having for its object the suppression of profanity. On the thoroughfare, on the street cars, and even in places of amusement and pleasure, one’s ears are often saluted with broad oaths which jar on the sensibilities, and would lead a stranger to suppose that the population of Chicago is largely made up of mule-drivers and chicken-fanciers. The boys catch the spirit, and youngsters that can scarcely toddle are to be heard rattling out oaths big enough to consign a whole army to perdition. Almost every vice has more reason and excuse than the vice of profanity. There is a round of sin to which men are enticed because of benefits they hope to receive, or because of temptation they appear powerless to resist. But the habitual swearer can set up no such plea. It bestows no benefits, it offers no reward. It very often gets a strong hold on men who are not otherwise immoral, simply as a habit, until the name of the Deity slips so glibly from the tongue that they make an excuse that they 7 do not notice it, or cannot help it. And yet how carefully they abstain from the use in the refined home where they desire a cordial welcome.

We have scarcely met a man (we do not speak of vulgar brutes in this connection) who, even when the habit was firmly seated, did not remember the proprieties and abstain from the practice in the presence of ladies, or if he was so unfortunate as to let ani oath escape his lips, who would not promptly apologize for such a breach of ordinary politeness. Welook in vain for an argument or excuse to palliate the vice of profanity. The English language is full and expressive, and the widest range of thought can find words to convey every shade of meaning, be they of pleasure or pain or anger. No man ever argues that oaths are any evidence of a gentleman, for he sees and knows that the greatest villains would lead him to the accomplishment. It is not brave to swear; the greatest cowards we have ever known, as boys and men, were those who were loudest and freest in oaths. The young man or boy who contracts the habit under the idea that it is brave or manly, makes a sad blunder, dishonors heroism, and degrades his manhood. Boys and young men can rest assured that in all the catalogue of sin none pays poorer than profane swearing. It will not add to your comfort or happiness, but, on the contrary, detract, and open the way to ruin in other directions. It would be well for every young man, even if he makes no claim to religion or morality, to remember that nothing is gained by swearing, and that oaths are the resort of, and should be left alone to, the vulgar, the ignorant and the cowardly.— Chicago Inter-Ocean.