or some means by which they may provide for
themselves, in the rude jostle of the world, will become more urgent and
imperative.

Will any one sit pining away in inert grief, when two streets off are
the midnight dance-houses, where girls of twelve, thirteen, and fourteen
are being lured into the way of swift destruction? How many of these are
daughters of soldiers who have given their hearts' blood for us and our
liberties!

Two noble women of the Society of Friends have lately been taking the
gauge of suffering and misery in our land, visiting the hospitals at
every accessible point, pausing in our great cities, and going in their
purity to those midnight orgies where mere children are being trained
for a life of vice and infamy. They have talked with these poor
bewildered souls, entangled in toils as terrible and inexorable as those
of the slave-market, and many of whom are frightened and distressed at
the life they are beginning to lead, and earnestly looking for the means
of escape. In the judgment of these holy women, at least one third of
those with whom they have talked are children so recently entrapped, and
so capable of reformation, that there would be the greatest hope in
efforts for their salvation. While such things are to be done in our
land, is there any reason why any one should die of grief? One soul
redeemed will do more to lift the burden of sorrow than all the
blandishments and diversions of art, all the alleviations of luxury, all
the sympathy of friends.

In the Roman Catholic Church there is an order of women called the
Sisters of the Good Shepherd, who have renounced the world to devote
themselves, their talents and property, entirely to the work of seeking
out and saving the fallen of their own sex; and the wonders worked by
their self-denying love on the hearts and lives of even the most
depraved are credible only to those who know that the Good Shepherd
Himself ever lives and works with such spirits engaged in such a work. A
similar order of women exists in New York, under the direction of the
Episcopal Church, in connection with St. Luke's Hospital; and another in
England, who tend the "House of Mercy" of Clewer.

Such benevolent associations offer objects of interest to that class
which most needs something to fill the void made by bereavement. The
wounds of grief are less apt to find a cure in that rank of life where
the sufferer has wealth and leisure. The _poor_ widow, whose husband