[424] Compendium of Seventh Census, p. 61.
[425] Ibid. p. 79.
[426] “That for a single offense, however grave, a whole life should be blasted, is a doctrine repugnant even to Nature’s own dealings in the visible world. There her voice clearly says, ‘Let all these wonderful powers of vital renewal have free play; let the foul flesh slough itself away; lop off the gangrened limb; enter into life, maimed if it must be,’ but never until the last moment of total dissolution does she say, ‘Thou shalt not enter into life at all.’
“Therefore, once let a woman feel that ‘while there is life there is hope,’ dependent on the only one condition that she shall sin no more, and what a future you open to her! what a weight you lift off from her poor miserable spirit, which might otherwise be crushed down to the lowest deep, to that which is far worse than any bodily pollution, ineradicable corruption of soul.”—A Woman’s Thoughts upon Women (New York ed.), p. 269.
“It may often be noticed the less virtuous people are, the more they shrink away from the slightest whiff of the odor of unsanctity. The good are ever the most charitable, the pure are the most brave. I believe there are hundreds and thousands of Englishwomen who would willingly throw the shelter of their stainless repute around any poor creature who came to them and said honestly, ‘I have sinned, help me that I may sin no more.’ But the unfortunates will not believe this. They are like the poor Indians, who think it necessary to pacify the evil principle by a greater worship than that which they offer to the Good Spirit, because, they say, the Bad Spirit is the stronger.”—Ibid. p. 272.
[427] Captain Ingraham.
[428] “Surely the consciousness of lost innocence must be the most awful punishment to any woman, and from it no kindness, no sympathy, no concealment of shame, or even restoration to good repute, can entirely free her. She must bear her burden, lighter or heavier as it may seem at different times, and she must bear it to the day of her death. I think this fact alone is enough to make a chaste woman’s first feeling toward an unchaste that of unqualified, unmitigated pity.
“Allowing the pity, what is the next thing to be done? Surely there must be some light beyond that of mere compassion to guide her in her after-conduct toward them. Where shall we find this light? In the world and its ordinary code of social morality, suited to social conscience? I fear not. The general opinion, even among good men, seems to be that this great question is a very sad thing, but a sort of unconquerable necessity; there is no use in talking about it, and, indeed, the less it is talked of the better. Good women are much of the same mind. The laxer-principled of both sexes treat the matter with philosophical indifference, or with the kind of laugh that makes the blood boil in any truly virtuous heart.
“I believe there is no other light on this difficult question than that given by the New Testament. There, clear and plain, and every where repeated, shines the doctrine that for every crime, being repented of and forsaken, there is forgiveness with Heaven, and if with Heaven there ought to be with men.
“When you shut the door of hope on any human soul you may at once give up all chance of its reformation. As well bid a man eat without food, see without light, or breathe without air, as bid him mend his ways, while at the same time you tell him that, however he amends, he will be in just the same position, the same hopelessly degraded, unpardoned, miserable sinner.”—A Woman’s Thoughts upon Women (New York ed.), p. 266.