r a minister's study is in his own home, with his wife passing
in and out, if he has female spiritual invalids calling on him.) She is
perfectly innocent in that she has not considered her moral
responsibility to the preacher she is about to victimize. She is very
modest, really and truly modest. He is a little on his guard till he
discovers this. First, she tells him that she is "unhappy at home,"
has a sacrilegious husband most likely. I have never known one who
spoke well of her husband. She has been perishing spiritually for
years in this "brutal" atmosphere, and she dwells upon it till the
preacher's heart is wrung with compassion for what this delicate nature
has suffered in the unhallowed surroundings of her home.

But now, she goes on, with a sweet light in her eyes, his sermons have
aroused in her a desire to overcome such difficulties and to live on a
higher plane. Could he give her some advice? He can. He is so full
of real, honest, truthful kindness he almost wants to hold her hands
while he bestows it. Nothing is further from his mind than evil. The
preacher, in particular, must think no evil. This places him within
easy reach of the morbid woman, who can do a good deal of evil before
she thinks it.

After a few visits she professes a very real "growth" spiritually,
but--she hesitates, lowers her gentle head and, finally, confesses that
she is troubled with "temptations." She shows her angelic confidence
in him by telling them, and he is deeply moved at the almost childish
innocency of what she calls her temptations. No honest woman could
possibly regard them as such, if he only knew it. But he doesn't know
it. He sees her reduced to tears over her would-be transgressions, and
before he considers what he is about he has kissed the "dear child."
That is the way it happens nine times out of ten, a good man damned and
lost by some frail angel of his church.

A minister is always justified in suspecting the worst of a pretty
woman who wants to consult him privately about her soul, whether she
has sense enough to suspect herself or not.

After observing William very carefully for thirty years I reached the
conclusion that the wisest preacher knows nothing about the purely
feminine soul, and the less he has to do with it the better. The
thing, whatever it is, is so intimately connected with her nervous
system that only her Heavenly Father can locate it from day to day.
And I have observed that