penalties of vice can scarcely be too great, and men and women must be
made to feel that wrong-doing is certain to be followed by terrible
consequences. The fire is merciful in that it always burns, and sin
and suffering are inseparably linked. But the consequences of one
person's sin often blight the innocent. The necessity of this from our
various ties should be a motive, a hostage against sinning, and
doubtless restrains many a one who would go headlong under evil
impulses. But multitudes do slip off the paths of virtue, and helpless
wives, and often helpless husbands and children, writhe from wounds
made by those under sacred obligations to shield them. Upon the
families of criminals, society visits a mildew of coldness and scorn
that blights nearly all chance of good fruit. But society is very
unjust in its discriminations, and some of the most heinous sins in
God's sight are treated as mere eccentricities, or condemned in the
poor, but winked at in the rich. Gentlemen will admit to their parlors
men about whom they know facts which if true of a woman would close
every respectable door against her, and God frowns on the Christian
(?) society that makes such arbitrary and unjust distinctions. Cast
both out, till they bring forth fruits meet for repentance.

But we hope for little of a reformative tendency from the selfish
society of the world. Changing human fashion rules it, rather than the
eternal truth of the God of love. The saddest feature of all is that
the shifting code of fashion is coming more and more to govern the
church. Doctrine may remain the same, profession and intellectual
belief the same, while practical action drifts far astray. There are
multitudes of wealthy churches, that will no more admit associations
with that class among which our Lord lived and worked, than will
select society. They seem designed to help only respectable, well-
connected sinners, toward heaven.