A FEARFUL RISK FOR GIRLS.
The pastor of a church in one of our large cities said to me, not long ago: “I have officiated at forty weddings since I came here, and in every case, save one, I felt that the bride was running an awful risk. Young men of bad habits and fast tendencies never marry girls of their own sort, but demand a wife above suspicion. So pure, sweet women, kept from the touch of evil through the years of their girlhood, give themselves, with all their costly dower of womanhood, into the keeping of men who, in base associations, have learned to under-value all that belongs to them, and then find no repentance in the sad after-years. There is but one way out of this that I can see, and that is for you—the young women of the country—to require in associations and marriage, purity for purity, sobriety for sobriety, and honor for honor.” “There is no reason why the young men of this Christian land should not be just as virtuous as its women, and if the loss of society and love be the price they are forced to pay for vice, they will not pay it. I admit with sadness that not all our young women are capable of this high standard for themselves or others, but I believe there are enough earnest, thoughtful girls in the society of our country to work wonders if faithfully aroused. “Dear girls, will you help us, in the name of Christ? Will you, first of all, be true to yourselves and God; so pure in your inner and outer life that you shall have a right to ask that the young man with whom you marry shall be the same? The awful gulf of dishonor is close beside your feet, and in it, fathers, brothers, lovers, and sons are going down. Will you help us in our great work?”—Sel.