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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 3

Religious Objections

Religious Objections.

The Saturday Review for January 1st, 1870, has so well answered the charge brought against the Contagious Diseases Act, that it is an interference with what is called the Providential punishment of vice, that I am tempted hero to reproduce it. "The' poison does not arise from promiscuous or illicit intercourse, but only from intercourse with affected persons. A man may lead an immoral life for fifty years, and never experience the 'retribution' which yet may fall on the first lad who, half from silliness and half from passion, gets momentarily entrapped into a vicious course. To the page 33 worst form of English vice—the seduction of the innocent,—it can never, from the nature of things, be a punishment; rather, the fear of such a retribution tends to spread wide the tendency to seduce, and thus becomes in itself a source of more evil than the 'retribution' ever could by any possibility cure."

On this point 1 may further cite the opinion of the Rev. F. D. Maurice, who

"believes that the argument respecting retribution for sin, which has had most weight with clergymen, is an untenable one. I believe that I should be guilty of a pious fraud if I told any young man that he would inevitably incur the punishment if he yielded to the temptation. I believe that I should be injuring his conscience both by the falsehood and by setting before him a low motive for abstinence; and I know not where the application of such a maxim could stop. Is gout not to be treated medically when it is proved to be the result of gluttony. Or madness, when it can be traced directly to drunkenness. Strike at the cause by all the moral influences you can use; but the effects ought to come under the cognizance of the physician."

Daily News, Jan. 19, 1870.

Having cited Mr. Maurice as a witness in my favour, it is only fair to remind my readers that he has not only ceased to advocate the extension of the Contagious Diseases Act, but that he has actually passed over to the opposite ranks. This conversion appears to have been wrought by the ladies' appeal, and the Reverend gentleman considers that such acts are objectionable, because the question that now ought to be considered is, how can prostitution be extirpated? I say, in reply, I shall be delighted to discuss with him this question, if he will also consider with me how can diseases be abated; neither the questions nor the objects are repugnant. It is not to be expected that a disease of nearly 6,000 years' duration will yield to slight pressure, or in a short time, I ask but this, that for the interval that must elapse between the present day and that on which its extirpation shall be accomplished, all the necessary means for dealing with the evil which, so long as it continues to exist, will also endure, may be provided. If Mr. Maurice will believe me, we are both labourers in page 34 the same vineyard; we both desire to improve the social, moral, and sanitary condition of unfortunate women, and all I ask of him is, not to neglect the fallen, while he is considering how they shall be made to cease from falling. As I have already said, the Contagious Diseases Act is only one of many measures that I desire to see in operation for checking prostitution, and the mischiefs arising from it. Surely the healing the prostitute's body, and reducing the amount of the suffering by her inflicted on the rest of the community, is no obstacle, but rather a help to the extirpation that he desires. I pass from Mr. Maurice, to the appeal that wrought his conversion, and here I cannot forbear to express my surprise, that a mind so logical should have been changed in its opinion by an appeal that contains so little reason.