Her plan was to go on the stage, and become a renowned actress, like
the heroine of one of her French novels. But this was not so easily
achieved as she imagined; and after a most unsuccessful attempt, she
was compelled to act only in subordinate parts. She had lost home,
happiness, and respectability, and had not gained that fame for which
she had sacrificed so much.

But it would be too painful to follow her through all her wretched
life, and tell how each succeeding year she grew more degraded and
more miserable, until at length having run a fearful career of vice
she sank into a dishonored and early grave. No mother's hand wiped the
cold death-dew from her brow; no kind voice whispered hope and
consolation. Alone, poor, degraded, utterly unrepentant, she will
appear before the judgment-seat of Christ; we pause; for we dare not
follow it further.

The sound of her name never echoed through the halls of her childhood.
Her father, stern and silent, buried all memories of his guilty child
deep within his heart; whilst the mother, wan, broken-hearted,
hopeless, wept in secret those tears of bitter agony whose fountain
was perpetually welling afresh.

It is "to point a moral" that we have opened these annals of the past;
and we would have the young ponder well the lesson that this history
teaches. There _is_ a danger in novel reading; it vitiates the taste,
enervates the understanding, and destroys all inclination for
spiritual enjoyment. The soul that is bound in fetters of this habit,
_cannot_ rise to the contemplation of heavenly things. It has neither
the inclination nor the power. We knew one, who, even with death in
view, turned with loathing away from the only Book that could bring