hed all imagination. I would
that the writing could be as cold in tone as the criticism of those who
consider everything other than polished ice almost amusing--to judge by
the way they handle it, dismissing it with an airy grace and a hurting
adjective. Would they be quite so cool, we wonder, if the little wronged
girl were their own? But we do not write for such as these. The thought
of the cold eyes would freeze the thoughts before they formed. We write
for the earnest-hearted, who are not ashamed to confess they care. And
yet we write with reserve even though we write for them, because nothing
else is possible. And this crushing back of the full tide makes its
fulness almost oppressive. It is as though a flame leaped from the page
and scorched the brain that searched for words quite commonplace and
quiet.

The finished product of the Temple system of education is something so
distorted that it cannot be described. But it should never be forgotten
that the thing from which we recoil did not choose to be fashioned so.
It was as wax--a little, tender, innocent child--in the hands of a
wicked power when the fashioning process began. Let us deal gently with
those who least deserve our blame, and reserve our condemnation for
those responsible for the creation of the Temple woman. Is it fair that
a helpless child, who has never once been given the choice of any other
life, should be held responsible afterwards for living the life to which
alone she has been trained? Is it fair to call her by a name which
belongs by right to one who is different, in that her life is
self-chosen? No word can cut too keenly at the root of this iniquity;
but let us deal gently with the mishandled flower. Let hard words be
restrained where the woman is concerned. Let it be remembered she is not
responsible for being what she is.

In a Canadian book of songs there is a powerful little poem about an
artist who painted one who was beautiful but not good. He hid all trace
of what was; he painted a babe at her breast.

I painted her as she might have been
If the Worst had been the Best.

And a connoisseur came and looked at the picture. To him it spoke of
holiest things; he thought it a Madonna:--

So I painted a halo round her hair,
And I sold her and took my fee;
And she hangs in the church of St. Hilaire,
Where you and all may see.

Sometimes as we have looked at the face o