She has Destroyed Herself.
PARIS has fallen! The causes that led to its overthrow will be studied with careful interest by statesmen and philosophers. It may be too soon to seek to trace them to their source. Still there can be little doubt that it has been fostering the seeds of its own degradation and decay. Prominent among these has been the prevalent frivolity, leading its citizens to seek in amusement the chief end of life. Even during the progress of the siege, the theaters have been open and crowded. It was a significant remark lately made by a thoughtful Frenchman to the editor of one of the journals, as they were witnessing the performance of one of the vile dances which the Parisians crowd to see, “There is the reason why we are beaten by the Prussians.” The influence of the corrupt literature so widely circulated, in eating out the vitality and virtue, physical and moral, of the people, has also been most marked. A recent letter by balloon to the New York Examiner, from Prof. Shephard, who has remained inside Paris during the siege, gives a fearful picture of the almost incredible depth of vileness and corruption to which the popular literature has descended. He states that, though Paris has been noted for its luxury and vice, the strong hand of power under the empire compelled it to observe a certain amount of retirement. Now, however, vice stalks abroad unabashed. The most grossly obscene and indecent books and caricatures, such as would not be tolerated in Turkey or India, are unblushingly sold in the open streets by young women and even little children. Well-dressed men and women crowd up to gaze upon and to buy. Books and engravings which formerly were concealed, are freely exposed in the windows of the shops, which would have been closed by the old authorities for such exposure, and their proprietors punished. Vice, under the empire, he says, “could go just so far and no farther. Now it goes its utmost length. We may well shudder as we imagine the Paris-Sodom of the future. As vice is promoted by publicity, it must, I fear, expand apace in Paris. Private vices intensify with indulgence, but public vices have an appalling power of self-multiplication.” To these fearful revelations must be added the plots of the communists to gain control. “Day by day,” says a correspondent of the New York Times, “the communist writers denounce the church, religion of all kinds, and even God. One of them wishes he could poniard the Supreme Being upon his throne. All openly declare themselves atheists, and the sworn enemies of Christianity. They are proud of calling themselves free-thinkers.” They are opposed to free-suffrage and to a deliberative assembly. They have no creed, no religion, no party or political faith; their principles can only be resolved into the one word—self. Poor Paris! What a comment is her present condition upon the sure connection of folly and vice and godless infidelity with social effeminacy and political ruin. Her seeming prosperity was but seeming and baseless; for when the trial came, there was no strength to resist it. The whole heart was decayed, and was powerless to send out its life-giving currents.—Am. Messenger.