The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1881-06-27
A YOUNG woMAN,s ROAD TO RUIN.
Q.uincY HeraId.

4 change
"a young woman whose name can not b
learned, but who came to Evansville frou
| Ridgeway, Illinois, to have an abortion
produced, returned in her coffin last Mon
day night, secretly
Secretly! How grimly put OF what
world of misery this little item tells Love
pure and innocent, at first: then som,
slight, improper liberty, followed by somt
greater one, and that, in turn, followed b.
forbidden joys; days of uncertainty an6
deep anxiety, doubt removed and fears re
allied, bitter regret, sad repenting, burning
anguish, futile efforts to escape the gath
ering tolls, the coming shame, final resolve
/ to apply the dangerous, dreadful, awful
remedy, secret flight, bnngling skill, infant
murder, physical suffering, mental agony,
alone, deserted by the grim ghost of black
despair, fainting, sinking, fainting sinking,
sinking ruined--deod
The old, old sad story, of innocent, girl
ish love; of love SO great that it Yields
everything, and in yielding thus, brings
ruin and death. Young woman, will YOU
heed it? As good-hearted girls as mother
ever nursed have gone down to death in
just this way
Father, mother, will you teach your
daughter to love you so that she will make
confident of you? So bring her up that
she dare come to you with every thought
of JOY or sorrow-in times of trouble, as
well as in moments of sunshine? We
verify believe that parents are as much 10
blame as daughters in a majority of these
cases They neglect the most important
part of a daughters education. They fail
to teach the child to trust them They
make no companion of their child. In
fact, so far as the most sacred feelings of
the heart are concerned, they are strangers.
But Notwithstanding faulty education,
we do not believe that the young woman
lives who can not be true to herself if she
will. Where girls fail, is in submitting to
the first, little liberty. This opens the
door to a legion of intimacies which can
result in but one thing. The only safe
way for every girl is to do exactly right
always. There is no such thing as temper
iZing with ones virtue. When you commence
this, your virtue has taken its departure
The slightest DETECTION from perfect pro-
priety weakens, is some degree, the girl for
further resistance. The only absolutely
safe way is the absolutely proper way.
There can be no trifiing in this matter.
If young woman takes the first little
misstep it is quite likely to prove her ruin
for it is but the precursor to another,
ton. And the second is taken with in
finitely greater case than the first
No woman ever yet submitted to the first
and least improper liberty without start
ing on that road which ends in loss of
chastity; and if she did not follow it to its
sure conclusion, it was because chance; or
something else, equally unreliable inter
vened to separate her from the man she
loved too well
There is no halfway house on this road
to woman's ruin. When once entered it
is generally followed to the end. And the
entrance to no road is more inviting to
passionate girl-a girl upon whom nature
has lavished her choicest charms. Physi
cal forces, sentiment, poetry-all warmed
by passion, invite her thither. The bend
ing trees along its sides are heavy with
foliage; the birds are singing in the
brsnches; the flowers, rich with perfume,
adorn its either side; just beyond she
hears the murmuring of sweet brooks; the
air is fresh and balmy; the sky is fiecked
with silvery clouds-with the sunlight
dropping in between them and the leaves,
and rendering all an enchanting picture and
one which is ever wooing her to enjoy its
charms At the far, far end of the aven
ne, looking through the mirage of love
and passion, she sees what seems to be O. !
beautiful palace, richly curtained, cor
niced, lowered and turreted, a fit abode
for the very angels. BY the first little mis-
step, that passionate, loving girl starts
down this beautiful road that promises SO
much Of pleasure, to the seemingly en-
chanted palace in the far, far dis
lance, where she imagines love and
leisure reign eternally. As she progresses
the way becomes less and less inviting.
The flowers close their pretty blossoms as
if in sorrow, and then they disappear; the
trees become dwarfed- and stunted and
they are gone; the birds at first cease to
sing, and then arc seen no more; the
brooks she heard are waterless, and mock |
her by their very silence; the air is fever |
and sets blister on the check, |
where it should plan a rose; the bright |
sun is hid by the black clouds of sorrow
and remorse; the road is rough, the way is |
weary the hours are misery-laden, the |
heart is aching, dut she keeps on and on
and on, and finally she nears what had |
seemed to her a beautiful place, cushioned |
within and ivy-entwined without, and sees
that it is a crumbling, moss covered, rust |
eaten ruin. She enters it, and finds it a
len of vipers, where crawl and hiss the |
snakes and Lizards of unbridled lust.
Oh! what an ending to the first, thought |
ess misstepl Shame, degradation, misery,
ruin! Oh, that parents could
teach their children that there is but one
way to happiness-that of answering
virtue and untainted honor! Any depar |
.ure from this course can bring only the
guilty blush of shame the rags of degrade
ion, bitter repentance, the blight of
misery, the curse of ruin-and premature
'emorseful death
Young woman, look at this picture, and
orget it not Ii aoas d,aecR for yoa!
RUGBY COLONY.