267. Midnight Exploration

Midnight Exploration

Second Night

Isa_21:11 : ’93Policeman, what of the night?’94

The original of the text may be translated either ’93watchman’94 or ’93policeman.’94 I have chosen the latter word. The olden-time cities were all thus guarded. There were roughs and thugs and desperadoes in Jerusalem, as well as there are in our modern cities. The police headquarters of olden time was on top of the city wall. King Solomon, walking incognito through the streets, reports in one of his songs that he met these officials. King Solomon must have had a large posse of police to look after his royal grounds, for he had twelve thousand blooded horses in his stables, and he had millions of dollars in his palace, and he had six hundred wives? and, though the palace was large, no house was ever large enough to hold two women married to the same man; much less could six hundred keep the peace. Well, the night was divided into three watches, the first watch reaching from sundown to ten oclock; the second watch from ten o’92clock to two in the morning; the third watch from two in the morning to sunrise. To this day, in old-fashioned English towns, a person lying awake will hear the patrol, as he goes his round calling out: ’93Two o’92clock and a misty morning,’94 ’93Three o’92clock and a rainy morning.’94 In the time of the text an Idumean, anxious about the prosperity of the city, and in regard to any danger that might threaten it, accosts an officer just as you might any night upon our streets, saying: ’93Policeman, what of the night?’94

Policemen, more than any other people, understand a city. Upon them are vast responsibilities for small pay. The police officer of your city gets eleven hundred dollars salary, but he may spend only one night of an entire month with his family. The detective of your city gets fifteen hundred dollars salary, but from January to January there is not an hour that he may call his own. Amid cold and heat and tempest, and amid the perils of the bludgeon of the midnight assassin, he does his work. The moon looks down upon nine-tenths of the iniquity of our great cities. What wonder, then, that a few weeks ago, in the interest of morality and religion, I asked the question of the text: ’93Policeman, what of the night?’94

In addition to this police escort, I asked two elders of the church to accompany me; not because they were any better than the other elders of the church, but because we were going into places where murder is sometimes done and where violent assault is frequent; and these elders were more muscular, and I was resolved that in any case where anything more than spiritual defense was necessary, to refer the whole matter to their hands. I believe in muscular Christianity. I wish that our theological seminaries, instead of sending out so many men with dyspepsia and liver complaint and all out of breath by the time they have climbed to the top of the pulpit stairs, would, through gymnasiums and other means, send into the pulpit physical giants as well as spiritual athletes. I do wish I could consecrate to the Lord two hundred and fifty pounds avoirdupois weight? But, borrowing the strength of others, I started out on the midnight exploration.

I was preceded in this work by Thomas Chalmers, who opened every door of iniquity in Edinburgh before he introduced systematic amelioration; and I was preceded by Thomas Guthrie, who explored all the squalor of the city before he established the ragged schools; and by every man who has done anything to balk crime, and help the tempted and the destroyed. Above all, I followed in the footsteps of him who was derided by the hypocrites and the Sanhedrins of his day, because he persisted in exploring the deepest moral slush of his time, going down among demoniacs and paupers and adulteresses, never so happy as when he had ten lepers to cure. Some of you may have been surprised that there was a great hue and cry raised before these sermons were begun, and sometimes the hue and cry was made by professors of religion. I was not surprised. The simple fact is that in all our churches there are lepers who do not want their scabs uncovered, and they foresaw that before I got through with this series of sermons I would show up some of the wickedness and rottenness of what is called the upper class. The devil howled because he knew I was going to hit him hard! Now, I say to all such men, whether in the church or out of it: ’93Ye hypocrites, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?’94

I noticed in my midnight exploration with these high officials that the haunts of sin are chiefly supported by men of rank and men of wealth. The young men recently come from the country, of whom I spoke last Sabbath morning, are on small salary, and they have but little money to spend in sin; and if they go into luxurious iniquity the employer finds it out by the inflamed eye and the marks of dissipation, and they are discharged. The luxurious places of iniquity are supported by men, who come down from the fashionable avenues of New York, and cross over from some of the finest mansions of Brooklyn. Prominent business men from Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Cincinnati patronize these places of crime. I could call the names of prominent men in our cluster of cities who patronize these places of iniquity, and I may call their names before I get through this course of sermons, though the fabric of New York and Brooklyn society tumble into wreck. Some of these wretches are judges of courts, distinguished lawyers, officers of the church, political orators standing on Republican and Democratic and Greenback platforms, talking about God and good morals, until you might suppose them to be evangelists expecting a thousand converts in one night. Call the roll of dissipation in the haunts of iniquity any night, and if the inmates will answer, you will find there stock-brokers from Wall street, large importers from Broadway, iron merchants, leather merchants, cotton merchants, hardware merchants, wholesale grocers, representatives from all the commercial and wealthy classes. Talk about the heathenism below Canal street! There is a worse heathenism above Canal street. I prefer that kind of heathenism which wallows in filth and disgusts the beholder rather than that heathenism which covers up its walking putrefaction with richest attire, and rides in turnouts worth five thousand dollars, liveried driver ahead and rosetted flunkey behind. We have been talking so much about the Gospel for the masses; now let us talk a little about the Gospel for the lepers of society, for the millionaire sots, for the portable lazarettos of upper-tendom. It is the iniquity that comes down from the higher circles of society that supports the haunts of crime, and it is gradually turning our cities into Sodoms and Gomorrahs waiting for the fire-and-brimstone tempest of the Lord God who whelmed the cities of the plain. We want about five hundred Anthony Comstocks to go forth and explore and expose the abominations of high life. For eight or ten years there stood within sight of the most fashionable New York drive, a Moloch temple, a brownstone hell on earth, which neither the Mayor, nor the judges, nor the police dared to touch, when Anthony Comstock, a Christian man of less than average physical stature, and with cheek scarred by the knife of a desperado whom he had arrested, walked into that palace of the debauched on Fifth avenue, and in the name of God put an end to it, the priestess presiding at the orgies retreating by suicide into the lost world, her bleeding corpse found in her own bath-tub. May the eternal God have mercy on our cities. Gilded sin comes down from these high places into the upper circles of iniquity, and then on gradually down, until in five years it makes the whole pilgrimage, from the apartment with marble pillars on the brilliant avenue clear down to the cellars of Water street. The officer on that midnight exploration said to me: ’93Look at them now, and look at them three years from now when all this glory has departed; they’92ll be a heap of rags in the station house.’94 Another of the officers said to me: ’93That is the daughter of one of the wealthiest families on Madison square.’94

But I have something more amazing to tell you than that the men of rank and wealth support these haunts of iniquity, and that is, that they are chiefly supported by heads of families’97fathers and husbands, with the awful perjury of broken marriage vows upon them, with a niggardly stipend left at home for the support of their families, going forth to squander their thousands for the diamonds and wardrobe and equipage of iniquity. Let such men be hurled out of this public iniquity. Let such men be hurled out of decent circles. Let them be hurled out from business circles. If they will not repent, overboard with them! I lift one-half the burden of malediction from the unpitied head of offending woman, and hurl it on the blasted pate of offending man! Society needs a new division of its anathema. By what law of justice does burning excoriation pursue offending woman down off the precipices of destruction; while offending man, kid-gloved, walks in refined circles, invited up if he have money, advanced into political recognition, while all the doors of high life open at the first rap of his gold-headed cane? I say, if you let one come back, let them both come back. If one must go down, let both go down. I give you as my opinion that the eternal perdition of all other sinners will be a heaven compared with the punishment everlasting of that man who, turning his back upon her whom he swore to protect and defend until death, and upon his children, whose destiny may be decided by his example, goes forth to seek illicit alliances elsewhere. For such a man the portion will be fire and hail and tempest and darkness and blood and anguish and despair forever, forever, forever!

My friends, there must be a reform in this matter, or American society will go to pieces. Under the head of ’93incompatibility of temper,’94 nine-tenths of the abomination goes on. What did you get married for if your dispositions are incompatible’94 ’93Oh!’94 you say, ’93I rushed into it without thought.’94 Then you ought to be willing to suffer the punishment for making a fool of yourself! Incompatibility of temper! You are responsible for at least a half of the incompatibility. Why are you not honest and willing to admit either that you did not control your temper, or that you had already broken your marriage oath? In nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of the thousand, incompatibility is a phrase to cover up wickedness already committed. I declare in the presence of this city and in the presence of the world that heads of families are supporting these haunts of iniquity. I wish there might be a police raid lasting a great while, that they would just go down through all these places of sin and gather up all the prominent business men of the city and march them down through the streets, followed by about twenty reporters to take their names and put them in full capitals in the next day’92s paper! Let such a course be undertaken in our cities, and in six months there would be eighty per cent. off your public crime. It is not now the young men and the boys that need so much looking after; it is their fathers. Let heads of families cease to patronize places of iniquity, and in a short time they would crumble to ruin.

But you meet me with the question: ’93Why do not the city authorities put an end to such places of iniquity?’94 I answer in regard to Brooklyn, the work has already been done. Six years ago there were in the radius of its City Hall thirty-eight gambling saloons. They are all broken up. The ivory and wooden ’93chips’94 that came from the gambling-hells into the Police Headquarters came in by the peck. How many inducements were offered to our officials, such as: ’93This will be worth a thousand dollars to you if you will let it go on.’94 ’93This will be worth five thousand if you will only let it go on.’94 But our commissioners of police, superior to any bribe, pursued their work until (while beyond the city limits there may be exceptions) within the city limits of Brooklyn there is not a gambling-hell, or policy-shop, or a house of death, so avowed. Every Monday morning all the captains of the police make reports in regard to their respective precincts. When the work began, the police in authority at that time said: ’93Oh, it can’92t be done; we can’92t get into these places of iniquity to see them, and hence we can’92t break them up.’94 ’93Then,’94 said the commissioners of police, ’93break in the doors;’94 and it is astonishing how soon after the shoulders of a stout policeman press against the door, it gets off its hinges. Some of the captains of police said: ’93This thing has been going on so long, it cannot be crushed.’94 ’93Then,’94 said the commissioners of police, ’93we’92ll get other captains of police.’94 The work went on until now, if a reformer wants the commissioners of police to show him the haunts of iniquity in Brooklyn, there are none to show him. If you know a single case that is an exception to what I say, report it to me at the close of this service at the foot of the platform, and I will warrant that within two hours after you report the case to Commissioner Jourdan, Superintendent Campbell, Inspector Waddy, and as many of the twenty-five detectives and of the five hundred and fifty policemen as are necessary will come down on it like an Alpine avalanche. If you do not report it, it is because you are a coward, or else because you are in the sin yourself and you do not want it shown up. You shall bear the whole responsibility, and it shall not be thrown on the hard-working and heroic detective and police force. But you say: ’93How has this general clearing out of gambling-hells and places of iniquity been accomplished?’94 Our authorities have been backed up by a high public sentiment. In a city which has on its judicial bench such magnificent men as Neilson and Reynolds and McCue and Moore and others whom I am not fortunate enough to know, there must be a mighty impulse upward toward God and good morals. We have in the high places of this city men not only with great heads, but with great hearts. A young man disappeared from his father’92s house about the time the Brooklyn Theater burned, and it was supposed that he had been destroyed in that ruin. The father, broken-hearted, sold his property in Brooklyn, and in desolation left the city. Recently the wandering son came back. He could not find his father, who, in departing, had given no idea of his destination. The case was reported to a man high in official position, and he sat down and wrote a letter to all the chiefs of police in the United States, in order that he might deliver that prodigal son into the arms of his broken-hearted father. A few days ago it was found that the father was in California. I understand that that son is now on the way to meet him, and it will be the parable of the prodigal son over again when they embrace each other, and the father says: ’93Rejoice with me, for this my son was dead and is alive again, was lost and is found.’94 I have forgotten the name of the father, I have forgotten the name of his son; but I have not forgotten the name of the officer whose sympathetic heart beats so loudly under his badge of office. It was Patrick Campbell, Superintendent of the Brooklyn Police. I do not mention these things as a matter of city pride, nor as a matter of exultation, but of gratitude to God that Brooklyn today stands foremost among American cities in its freedom from places of iniquity. But Brooklyn has a large share of sin. Where do the people of Brooklyn go when they propose to commit abomination? To New York. I was told in the midnight exploration in New York with the police that there are some places almost entirely supported by men and women from Brooklyn. We are one city after all’97one now before the bridge is completed, to be more thoroughly one when the bridge is done.

Well, then, you press me with another question: ’93Why do not the public authorities of New York extirpate these haunts of iniquity?’94 Before I give you a definite answer I want to say that the obstacles in that city are greater than in any city on this continent. It is so vast. It is the landing-place of European immigration. Its wealth is mighty to establish and defend places of iniquity. Twice a year there are incursions of people from all parts of the land coming on for the spring and the fall trade. It requires twenty times the municipal energy to keep order in New York that it does in any city from Portland to San Francisco. But you still pursue me with the question, and I am to answer it by telling you that there is infinite fault and immensity of blame to be divided between three parties. First, the police of New York city. So far as I know them they are courteous gentlemen. They have had great discouragement, they tell me, in the fact that when they arrest criminals and bring them before the courts the witnesses will not appear lest they criminate themselves. They tell me also that they have been discouraged by the fact that so many suits have been brought against them for damages. But after all, my friends, they must take their share of blame. I have come to the conclusion, after much research and investigation, that there are captains of police in New York who are in complicity with crime’97men who make thousands of dollars a year for the simple fact that they will not tell, and will permit places of iniquity to stand month after month, and year after year. I am told that there are captains of police in New York who get a percentage on every bottle of wine sold in the haunts of death, and that they get a revenue from all the shambles of sin. What a state of things this is! There are between five and six hundred dens of darkness in the city of New York, where there are two thousand five hundred policemen. Not long ago there was a masquerade ball in which the masculine and feminine offenders of society were the participants, and some of the police danced in the masquerade and distributed the prizes! There is now open the grandest opportunity that has ever opened for any American. It is for the man in high official position who shall get into his stirrups and say: ’93Men, follow!’94 and who shall in one night sweep around and take all of these leaders of iniquity, whether on suspicion or on positive proof, saying: ’93I will take the responsibility; come on! I put my private property and my political aspirations and my life into this crusade against the powers of darkness.’94 That man would be Mayor of the city of New York. That man would be fit to be President of the United States.

But the second part of the blame I must put at the door of the District Attorney of New York. I understand he is an honorable gentleman, but he has not time to attend to all these cases. Literally, there are thousands of cases not prosecuted for lack of time. Now, I say, it is the business of New York to give assistants and clerks and help to the District Attorney until all these places shall go down in quick retribution.

But the third part of the blame, and the heaviest part of it, I put on the moral and Christian people of our cities, who are guilty of most culpable indifference on this whole subject. When Tweed stole his millions large audiences were assembled in indignation, Charles O’92Conor was retained, committees of safety and investigation were appointed, and a great stir made; but night by night there is a theft and a burglary of city morals as much worse than Tweed’92s robberies as his were worse than common shoplifting, and it has very little opposition. I tell you what New York wants; it wants indignation meetings in Cooper Institute and Academy of Music and Chickering and Irving Halls to compel the public authorities to do their work and to send the police, with clubs and lanterns and revolvers, to turn off the colored lights of the dance-houses, and to mark for confiscation the trunks and wardrobes and furniture and scenery, and to gather up all the keepers and all the inmates and all the patrons, and march them out to the Tombs, fife and drum sounding the Rogues’92 March.

While there are men smoking their cigarettes, with their feet on Turkish divans, shocked that a minister of religion should explore and expose the iniquity of city life, there are raging underneath our great cities a Cotopaxi, a Stromboli, a Vesuvius, ready to bury us in ashes and scoria deeper than that which overwhelmed Pompeii and Herculaneum. Oh! I wish the time would come for the plowshare of public indignation to push through and rip up and turn under those parts of New York which are the plague of the nation. Now is the time to hitch up the team to this plowshare. Now is the time for a great crusade, and for the people of our cities in great public assemblages to say to police authority: ’93Go ahead, and we will back you with our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.’94

I must adjourn until next Sabbath morning much of what I wanted to say about certain forms of iniquity which I saw rampant in the night of my exploration with the city officials. But before I stop this morning I want to have one word with a class of men with whom people have so little patience that they never get a kind word of invitation. I mean the men who have forsaken their homes. O my brother, return. You say: ’93I cannot; I have no home; my home is broken up.’94 Re-establish your home. It has been done in other cases, why may it not be done in your case? ’93Oh,’94 you say, ’93we parted for life; we have divided our property; we have divided our effects.’94 I ask you, did you divide the marriage ring of that bright day when you started life together? Did you divide your family Bible? If so, where did you divide it? Across the Old Testament, where the Ten Commandments denounce your sin; or across the New Testament, where Christ says: ’93Blessed are the pure in heart?’94 Or did you divide it between the Old and the New Testaments, right across the family record of weddings and births and deaths? Did you divide the cradle in which you rocked your first-born? Did you divide the little grave in the cemetery, over which you stood with linked arms, looking down in awful bereavement? Above all, I ask you, did you divide your hope for heaven, so that there is no full hope left for either of you? Go back! There may be a great gulf between you and once happy domesticity; but Christ will bridge that gulf. It may be a bridge of sighs. Turn toward it. Put your foot on the overarching span. Hear it! It is a voice unrolling from the throne: ’93He that overcometh shall inherit all things, and I will be unto him a God, and he shall be my son; but the unbelieving, and the sorcerers, and the whoremongers, and the adulterers, and the idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone’97which is the second death!’94

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage