Herald and tribune. [volume] (Jonesborough, Tenn.) 1869-current, 1896-12-09
The New Magdalen.v


has been completely forgiven are few.
The most noted of these was the woman
taken in adultery, mentioned in scrip
ture and beautifully sung by Joaquin
Miller: t
"He arose and he looked on the daughter
OF Eve, like delicate flower,
And he heard the revilers that brought
her
Men stormy, and strong as tower.
"And he said: She has sinn'd let the
Come forward and cast the first stone =
But they-they .tfled shamed and yet
shameless,
And she, she stood white as stone"
A less noted pariah whois pathetically
remembered by some few was woman
Of Memphis. In the beautiful plot Of
one Of the Memphis cemeteries, where
the birds do not hesitate to lager and
sing, where the flower of that semi -tropic
region blush no more deeply because Of
her dust and where children in their
Sunday evening rembles chLfter ;'weetly
and happily, is tall marble shaft. On
1t, more conspicuous than the simple
legend thereon, and yet not grossly glar-
ing, is the name
MoLLIE COOK, u
This is the name of TIE woman who
owned gilded den in the Bluff City in
1878, but which was turned BY lher into q
hospital during the yellow fever plague
when the people sent up prayer after
prayer for relief !that the white gift Of
Gods frost that would drive away the
disease. She turned the inmates out,
and nursed the sick back to life again I;
and then, weary with watching and toll
ing, she lay down and died.
The shaft was erected by the citizens
Of Memphis In grateful remembrance.
R.L Cary's poem published in the
Buffalo Courier the year after her death
and entitled "The New Magdalen,' Is
still going the rounds:
The Yellow Death came stealing
Up from the rivers edge.
Up from the dark, dank morass
With its tangled fringe Of sedge:
Up from the stagnant bayous,
On the south Winds tainted breath,
Till the skies grew dark at Memphis
With the shadowy wings OF death.
The air grew dense and silent,
The wild bird ceased its song,
And strong men cried in anguish:
"How long, Oh God, how longG"
But the skies gave back no answer.
Deaths pitiless scythe still swung,
And the harvest the Reaper gathered
Was a harvest Of old and young.
The babe in its cradle sleeping
In the flush OF the morning light,
With smile on its dimpled features,
In coffin slept at night:
The man who knelt at even,
Thanking God for the strength he gave,
Lay down to sleep at the dawning
In the cold and narrow grave.
The pavements only echoed
To the wheels Of the passing hearse,
AS it bore to the Silent City
The victims Of the cu,sje,
And the voice ef the sff,icl!s !sil mournors,
Who heard not the rustling wing,
But saw on the sleeper's forehead
The seal Of the Saffron King.
Then out from gilded palace
OF Sorrow and Sin and Shame,
Clad in the Robes of Scarlet,
A fallen woman came,
And the song of the noisy revel
Gave place in its stately hall
To the prayer for the sick and dying,
And woman's soft football
And back from Deaths dark portals,
From the verge of an unknown land,
Came many wandering mortal
AT the touch of that woman's hand,
Till the Fever, wrathful, sullen,
Touched her with Its tainted breath,
And asleep, in snowy garment,
She lay In the arms Of death.
o girl with the jeweled fingers,
. maid with the laces rare,
Will that woman's grander action
Count less than thy studied prayer9
Have the angels, looking earthward,
A love more tender seen
Than that Of this fallen woman
The true New Magdalen?
There are few people who look upon
this grave, kissed by the impartially
tender sunlight and watched over as
faithfully by the stars as are other graves
there, that one willing to cast the first
stone at the memory Of its humble oc-
cupant, who died in the efforts to benefit
those who had banished her to the out
skirts Of society-a leper white as snow.