Proverbs 12:26 The righteous is more excellent than his neighbor: but the way of the wicked seduces them. The seduction of the lower class of females is due to the profligacy of men in a superior station in life. It is the custom to confine ourselves to generalities in the pulpit. But the reasoning which applies to all crimes acts languidly against each individual crime — it does not paint the appropriate baseness, or echo the reproaches of the heart. 1. The character of a seducer is base and dishonourable: if deceit is banished among equals; if the conduct of every man, to those of his own station in life, should be marked by veracity and good faith; why are fallacy and falsehood justified, because they are exercised by talents against ignorance, cunning against simplicity, power against weakness, opulence against poverty? No one ever lured a wretched creature to her ruin without such a complication of infamous falsehoods as would have condemned him to everlasting infamy, had they been exercised to the prejudice of any one in a higher scene of life: and what must be the depravity of that man who has no other criterion of what he shall do, Or from what he shall abstain, than impunity? 2. To the cruelty of seduction is generally added the baseness of abandoning its object, of leaving to perish in rags and hunger a miserable being bribed by promises and oaths of eternal protection and regard. 3. This crime cannot be defended under any of the ingenious systems by which men are perpetually vitiating their understandings. (Sidney Smith, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: The righteous is more excellent than his neighbour: but the way of the wicked seduceth them.WEB: A righteous person is cautious in friendship, but the way of the wicked leads them astray. |
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