Western sentinel. [volume] (Winston [i.e. Winston-Salem], N.C.) 1856-1886, 1880-01-29
Where's the Difference +?

from a philosophical humorist of. the
day, and translated into common En-
glish out of their dialect of slang and
miss-speIling, give some hard home
thrusts at well known inconsistency
in the customs of social life in reference
to its different treatment of the same
sin in offenders who differ only in sex.
We admit the necessity of guarding the
purity of society by such outward pen
ties and forfeitures as shall be ar
effectual restraint where inner religious
principle is lacking. For prevention is
mmcasurably superior to remedy, and
it may be perfectly right for farther Sc
curity to prevent one who ever has once
thus lost position from ever regaining the
same position but we do not see why it
should be necessary SO completely and
finally to ostracise wandering ones as
to prevent them from ever attaining
again any position at all. The effect
OF this course has been to check all
effort on their own part or on that of
others, for the reformation and recla-
nation of the tens of thousands of our
perish:ng sisters in cities and towns
and country, many of whom have con-
tinued to wander after one turn away
from the path Of virtue, only because
there was no way back. Is not the
Christian world now practically forcing
them to go on in evil-practicallv say
ing to them, "Go on to the devil now
that you have chosen to start"-bv
refusing to give them honest work when
they seek it, and Christian recognition
when they try to attain lie of pen
itence and decency.
There is a fact IN this connection
that we have noticed in our dealings
with houses of mercy and Christian
refuge for such unfortunate ones, and
we commend it to the meditation of
the jealous virtuous ones, who would
ro.l up their eyes in holy horror at the
idea Of having any such being who had
once "sinned,' engaged anywhere about
the premises in honest work for her
living 1t is this; that wherever this
work Of reclaiming the wandering has
been undertaken, and helping hands
have teen stretched out to lift fallen
sisters out Of their degradation, and to
restore them through penitence to them
selves and to honest life and to God,
these helping hands have invariably
careful of the sex, who would not care
much for the contamination of society,
but those OF the purest and most stain
less and most refined women of the
land, while others have drawn away
their robes in disdain.
The subject calls forth this natural
inquiry: Why is it that, while the less
guilty party must forever hang her
head in shame and steal away, the more
guilty man, the hero of not one but
many such triulnphs of Satan over the
innocence of Eden, moves unabashed in
the best of cultivated society, and is
started on again amid the brightest
smiles of fair companions on his errand
of desolating other innocent hearts and
happy homes? If there must be pen
atty, why not visit it upon both ?
We give the extract for what it may
be worth.
"Women will go out and kill the
fatted calf with their own hands, to
feast the male prodigal that has been
living ON husks. But let the woman
that he has been boarding with on the
same bundle of husks ask mee&ly for IA
little morsel of this fatted calf, and will
she get it ? no; she will not get so
much as one of the hoofs. She will be
told 20 keep on eating her husks, and
after she has gotten through with them
to die, for, after aOoman has once eat
EN- husks, she can never eat any other
and if she asks meekIy why
her stomach is so differnt from that of
the male husk eater, who went right off
from husks to farted calf, they will say
to her that what is sin in woman Is no
sin in a man that men are such noble
creatures they will be little wild 1t
is expected of them but after they
have sown their wild oats they will al
ways settle down and make the very
best of men.
Cant 1 settle down too?' cries the
poor woman Il am sick of wild oats
too, l am sick of husks, want to live a
good life in the sight of God and man.
Can't l settle down too? 2
'Yes, you can settle down in the
grave, they say to her. when wo--
man has sinned once that is the only
place left for her: a woman can't be
forgiven
There is an old saying, indeed, Go,
and sin no more but that is 1900 years
old wful!y old d-fashioned.
And then, after they have feasted
this male prodigal on the fatted calf,
they will take him into their houses
and marry him to their purest and pref
test daughter, while at the same time
they will not have the female prodigal
in their kitchen to wash for them at four
cents an article.
8 BHsy not thvself in searching in
other mems lives the errors of
thine own are more than thou canst
answer for. 1t more concerns thee
to mend one fault in thyself than to
find out a thousand in others.
= Bishop Leighton.