id Jephthah have as part of his life tragedy an unclean
father, but he had an unclean mother as well. Jephthah's mother was
not one of those unfortunate souls, more sinned against than sinning,
who had made one false step for the sake of the man she loved. She was
a professional outcast. She was a woman who made it her business day
by day to sell herself over the counters of iniquity. She was one of
those whose feet in all ages take hold on hell.

So Jephthah had a bad chance. He was the fragment of a home that never
was. He had no father that dared to own him. And the first eyes into
which he looked were the eyes of an unclean woman. And the first lips
that kissed him were lips soiled and stained by years of sinful living.
Poor little baby. Poor little foundling. Poor little outcast. How
much he missed.

What are the most precious memories in your life to-night? What are
the scenes to which you look back with deepest love and tenderness? I
know. They are the scenes of your childhood's home.

"How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood,
When fond recollection, presents them to view;
The orchard, the meadow, the deep tangled wildwood,
And every loved spot that my infancy knew."

But the secret of the fascination of those dear scenes is this, that we
saw them by the glow of the light of love. We think tenderly of our
early homes because they were presided over by a father and mother who
knew God. And the one cord that has failed to snap between us and a
good life is the cord that ties us still to the faith of our fathers
and our mothers.

But Jephthah missed all this. His father was unfaithful. His mother
was an unclean woman. There were no tender and holy associations that
made it easy for him to be good. There were no memories to come in
after years and whisper old half forgotten prayers. There were no fond
recollections to lay their hands upon him with angelic tenderness and
lead him away from his City of Destruction. He was a child of sin, a
child of blackness and of night, a child bereft of the inspiration of a
good mother's life and the sweet uplift of a pious home.

And not only was this man wronged in what he missed, he was equally
wronged in what he suffered. Early he was branded with a shame not his
own. I know of few places where society has been so unjust and unkind
as it has in its condemnation of those innocent ones who are the
victims of another's sin. We