The record-union., 1892-10-31
"A LOST GIRL. "
Philanthropy That is Worthy of All
encouragement.

1t is impossible for language to recite a
more pathetic story than is epitomized in
these three short words -- ~ girl
lost" The very suggestion is sickening.
They admit of but one Interpretation,
and that IS one from which virtue recoilS,
from which fathers turn with slaughter in
their hearts, from which mothers shrink
with feeling Of des0lation that the child
less can never know, and toward which
ali that Is degrading in human nature
turns, glOat1ng i'll the downfall OF purity
the deDasement Of innocence the degra-
dation OF Il human body, the despair of a
human soul. The history of ''a lost girl"
does not need to be written. Blotted and
DIistered by mothers tears, darkened
by a fathers sorrow, blackened perchance
by his curse-such of it as can be written
has long been recorded, and it daily re-
peats itself with unvarying precision.
For Il condition for which a remedy is
far to seek and is seldom found, pre-
Ventive should be Zealously sought, 1t
may be conceded that the road to this lies
in judicious parental restraint and watch
fulness, and, above all. i'll the careful in
structIOn OF young girls in lines of mod
esty, dignity and of self-control, and of
young men in the principles of honor and
personal decency. Selt-respect and self
restraint are trusty sentinels at the gate
way of virtue. These are qualities that
have not been developed in the lost
girl" or her companion in guilt, and her
reformation-fOr philanthropists do not
despair of ber-depends entirely upon
the success of the effort to awaken them.
1t is easy to enter protest against So
ciety, in the name of justice and human
ity, for the verdict which it has rendered
in her case, but it is quite another thing
to change its attitude. The position Of
humane and charitable people toward her
has, 1t is true, greatly improved since the
time the customs of which are so power
fully portrayed in the "Scarlet Letter."
but the great mass of the self-righteous
still maintain an uncompromising de-
meanor toward the offending one, which
causes her first act of inconsiderate folly,
il it was such, to be followed by a delib-
crate persistence in sin from which a
fathers enIreaties and a mothers tears
are powerlesS to turn her.
Nevertheless, systematized effort in be-
half of 1.-The lost grip is now feature of
every large community. and true philan-
thropy finds it worthy of all encourage
ment. Theorize as we may, PROFOUND
preventive remedies as we may. deplore
as we may the weakness OF woman and
the wickedness of man, and arraign as we
may society for its monstrous injustice
toward her, philanthropy will yet find
plenty of material to work upon in this
task to which it has set willing hand
and a noble purpose, fortunate if through
its efforts "a lost girl'' is occasionally re-
stored to her home and to the world.
Woman has been justly arraigned for
her uncompromising attitude toward the
fallen OF her sex, yet among the intelli-
gent, cultivated we men of to-day the
aversion to the sin does not extend to the
sinner if the latter is young girl who
has sinned against her own soul through
blind affection for an object unworthy of
her devotion. Nor, indeed, does it ex-
tend to any woman who is possessed of
an earnest desire to be reclaimed from
life of shame. a true woman may, in
deed, pity the most brazen victim of un-
governed passion, in that the latter has
degenerated from lost girl'' into an
abandoned woman. The difference be-
tween the one and the other is vast, but
the steps that lead to this lowest estate of
womanhood, OF humanity, are swiftly
downward, and il the lost girl'' is res
cued from the Shiny path that leads to
moral death, The hand of the rescuer
must be prompt and his or her purpose
clothed with the garb Of kindness.
land Oregonian.