The Washington herald., 1911-06-19

woman sinner herself so often accepts
her damnation as final.
Many a girl who makes a false step
/ in her youth is not bad at all. Often
she Is betrayed into wrongdoing by some
noble and generous impulse, and the suf-
fering that she has to undergo as re-
suit of her mistake is a thrice heated
| furnace that burns up the dross of her
nature and leaves only what is good
| fused into fine gold. She could become
grand and noble woman, blessing to
herself and society, except for her fool
ish and cowardly belief that a woman
can never come back-that she is bound
down to her past.
| Many such a woman goes on doing
wrong because she has once done wrong.
! She believes there is no turning back
upon the pathway on which she has set
her feet, and so she pursues it to the
hard and bitter end, and the more she
Ioathes her life, the faster she goes the
pace that kills, and the deeper she drinks
of the cup that brings forgetting, for
the time at least.
Brush on the Dirt.
It is a tragically distorted view to take
of a terrible situation. Because a wom-
an has muddied the hem of her skirt,
shall she never bursh OF the dirt? Or
must she always wear a soiled garment
instead of having the wisdom and the
strength to cast 1t from her and clothe
herself in clean. fresh robe?
There is no earthly reason why wom-
an should not reform, why she should
not, as the poet beautifully puts 1t, rise
to higher things on the stepping stones
--of her dead self. All that many a woman
lacks of being able to do this is Just
the courage to believe tnat she can do
1t, and that the door of hope is as wide
open to her as 1t would be to man
under similar circumstances.
The woman with the past should cut
herself loose from it, instead of letting
1t be a milestone about her neck that
pulls her deeper and deeper into the
mlre. Whatever the error she has COM
mitted, however her feet have stumbled
she should realize that she still has the
future before her in which to make Of .
her life what she chooses What is
written is written says the Koran.
We cannot change that, but We can make
whatever daily entry We please in the
great ledger of life
Society Has Long Memory.
Women complain that society has a
long memory for a woman's faults, and
that If a girl once makes a slip it will
be whispered about her as long as she
lives. This is true. and therefore, the
woman who wants to make a fresh start
does well to burn her bridges behind her.
and go of to some place where she is
not known. and where gossip does not fol-
low her. The world is wide and full Of
opportunities now for women, and any
woman who is good and useful and help
full can go to any community and make
place for herself, where she will be
honored and respected and where she will
be judged by her present, instead of her
past.
1t is not necessary nowadays to have
the road back to responsibility set with
the @horns OF cruel village gossip, nor
for a woman to be scourged upon it by
the curious and pitying observation Of
her friends. Let her go among strangers,
where there will be no hideous surmiseS!
If she dares to enjoy an innocent friend
ship with a man, and where no eye viii
be watching. to see if she falls again INTO
the pit OF drink, II she takes glass OF
wine.
WiseSt and Strongest Err.
The wisest and the strongest of US
make mistakes and stumble and fall, and
the best that we can do is to pick our
selves up and be more careful of the
pitfalls In our way. 1t is worse than
folly, 1t is criminal, to be bound by our
mistakes, and to lie supinsly in the dust.
This is just as true of women as IL is
OF men. and whether woman can come
back or not depends entirely upon her
self.
There is no reason why the woman
sinner should be crucified as long as she
lives upon the cross of the sin that she
has forsaken. She has worked the mira
Gle of her own resurrection, and from
the tomb of her past she walks forth
clean and whole.