into the same rank with yonder decorous
matron, and that somewhat prudish maiden? Surely these poor creatures,
born to vice as their sole and natural inheritance, can be no fit
associates for women who have been guarded round about by all the
proprieties of domestic life, and who could not err unless they first
created the opportunity. Oh no; it must be merely the impertinence of
those unblushing hussies; and we can only wonder how such respectable
ladies should have responded to a summons that was not meant for them.

We shall make short work of this miserable class, each member of which
is entitled to grasp any other member's hand, by that vile degradation
wherein guilty error has buried all alike. The foul fiend to whom it
properly belongs must relieve us of our loathsome task. Let the bond
servants of sin pass on. But neither man nor woman, in whom good
predominates, will smile or sneer, nor bid the Rogues' March be played,
in derision of their array. Feeling within their breasts a shuddering
sympathy, which at least gives token of the sin that might have been,
they will thank God for any place in the grand procession of human
existence, save among those most wretched ones. Many, however, will be
astonished at the fatal impulse that drags them thitherward. Nothing is
more remarkable than the various deceptions by which guilt conceals
itself from the perpetrator's conscience, and oftenest, perhaps, by the
splendor of its garments. Statesmen, rulers, generals, and all men who
act over an extensive sphere, are most liable to be deluded in this
way; they commit wrong, devastation, and murder, on so grand a scale,
that it impresses them as speculative rather than actual; but in our
procession we find them linked in detestable conjunction with the
meanest criminals whose deeds have the vulgarity of petty details. Here
the effect of circumstance and accident is done away, and a man finds
his rank according to the spirit of his crime, in whatever shape it may
have been developed.

We have called the Evil; now let us call the Good. The trumpet's brazen
throat should pour heavenly music over the earth, and the herald's
voice go forth with the sweetness of an angel's accents, as if to
summon each upright man to his reward. But how is this? Does none
answer to the call? Not one: for the just, the pure, the true, and an
who might most worthily obey it, shrink sadly back, as most conscious
of error and imperfection. Then let the