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The Home Circle

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Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 12, 1883

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 9, No. 26.

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The Home Circle.

By A. Graham

"ONLY AN OUTCAST."

"Only an outcast!" a low voice said, With a curl of the lip and a toss of the head, As she haughtily passed her by. "Only an outcast! She's nothing on earth But a living disgrace to the land of her birth, Fit neither to live nor die."
"Only an outcast!" and night has come; She is wending her way to her desolate home, To the rude cot over the stream. And colder the stars seem to shine than of yore, And longer the pathway, than ever before, And fainter the moon's pale beam.
"Only an outcast!" Poor soul she goes With her eyes full of tears and heart full of woes Alone in the fading light. Not a person to give her a cheerful word, And no faithful Christian heart is stirr'd To show her the path of right.
"Only an outcast!" an orphan child— A wanderer sad on a desert wild, Without either hope or faith. Once a mother's joy and a father's pride— Now hurried along in the fearful tide That only can end in death.
"Only an outcast!" in that dim eye Can be read that she fears—yet wishes to die, And pass from beneath sin's blight. The past brings her nothing but sorrow and pain, The present affords no relief from the stain, The future's as black as night.
"Only an outcast!" What made her so? 'Twas whisky that struck the first hard blow And made her an orphan child, And she toiled alone amid want and shade, Till she fell in the trap wicked men had laid. And alas! she is now defiled.
"Only an outcast!" a Magdalene, An object of pity, unclean, unclean, Polluted without and within; Forsaken by all, by the pure and the true, Do you wonder that she should bid virtue adieu And travel the path of sin?
"Only an outcast!" Rum led the way And has brought her to what she is to-day— And it was legally sold, The license was paid, he'd a right (?) to sell The dark and delusive essence of hell And barter virtue for gold!
"Only an outcast!" Society's bane— And naught can efface the indelible stain. Her sorrows she must endure, While those who effected her ruin and fall Are accepted and seen in society's hall As one with the good and the pure.
"Only an outcast!" Ah! who shall bear The weight of her sin and shame up there Before the Judge's face! The Lord well knows who caused the blight— Made the sun of a young life set in night, And we know the great Judge will do right, And assign to each his place. —A Graham, D. D., in Bible Banner.