ugh lewd waltzes over the velvet carpets. There was laughter
without joy--there was frivolity without merriment--there was the
surface of enjoyment and the substance of woe, for beneath those painted
cheeks was the pallor of despair and broken health, and beneath those
whitened bosoms, half veiled with gaudy silks, were hearts that were
aching with remorse, or, yet more unhappy, benumbed and callous with
habitual sin.

Yet there, like a crushed pearl upon a heap of garbage, lingers the
trace of beauty; and there, surely, though sepulchred in the caverns of
vice, dwells something that was once innocence, and not unredeemable.
But whence is the friendly word to come, whence the guardian hand that
might lift them from the slough. They live accursed by even charity,
shunned by philanthropy, and shut from the Christian world like a tribe
of lepers whose touch is contagion and whose breath is pestilence. In
the glittering halls of fashion, the high-born beauty, with wreaths
about her white temples and diamonds upon her chaste bosom, gives her
gloved hand for the dance, and forgets that an erring sister, by the
touch of those white fingers, might be raised from the grave of her
chastity, and clothed anew with the white garments of repentance. But
no; the cold world of fashion, that from its cushioned pew has listened
with stately devotion to the words of the Redeemer, has taught her that
to redeem the fallen is beneath her caste. The bond of sisterhood is
broken. The lost one must pursue her hideous destiny, each avenue of
escape blocked by the scorn and loathing which denies her the contact of
virtue and the counsel of purity. In the broad fields of charity,
invaded by cold philosophers, losing themselves in searching unreal and
vague philanthropies, none so practical in beneficence as to take her by
the hand, saying, "Go, and sin no more."

But whenever the path of benevolence is intricate and doubtful, whenever
the work is linked with a riddle whose solving will breed discord and
trouble among men, whenever there is a chance to make philanthropy a
plea for hate, and bitterness and charity can be made a battle-cry to
arouse the spirit of destruction, and spread ruin and desolation over
the fair face of the earth, then will the domes of our churches resound
with eloquence, then will the journals of the land teem with their
mystic theories, then will the mourners of human woe be loud in
lamentation, and lift up their mighty v