deserted. If a native, she had fallen beneath the ban of respectability,
and was an outcast alike from hope and from good society. She was
condemned to wear a dress different from that of other people; she was
liable at any moment to be stoned for her conduct; she was one whom it
was a ritual impurity to touch. She was wretched beyond measure; but
while so corrupt, she was not utterly hardened. Incapable of virtue, she
was not incapable of gratitude. Weltering in grossness, she could still
be touched by the sight of purity. Plunged into extremest vice, she
retained the damning horror of her situation. If she had ever striven to
recover her lost position, there were none to assist her; the bigotry of
patriotism rejected her for her birth,--the scrupulousness of modesty,
for her history. The night, that consecrated so many homes and gathered
together so many families in innocence and repose, was to her blacker
than its own blackness in misery and turpitude; the morning, that
radiated gladness over the face of the world, revealed the extent and
exaggerated the sense of her own degradation. But the vision of Jesus
had alighted upon her; she had seen him speeding on his errands of
mercy; she hung about the crowd that followed his steps; his tender look
of pity may have sometimes gleamed into her soul. Stricken, smitten,
confounded, her yearnings for peace gush forth afresh. It was as if
Hell, moved by contrition, had given up its prey,--as if Remorse, tired
of its gnawing, felt within itself the stimulus of hope. But how shall
she see Jesus? Wherewithal shall she approach him? She has "nothing to
pay." She has tears enough, and sorrows enough,--but these are derided
by the vain, and suspected by the wise. She has an alabaster box of
ointment, which, shut out as she is from honorable gain, must be the
product and the concomitant of her guilt. But with these she must go. We
see her threading her lonely way through the streets, learning by hints,
since she would not dare to learn by questions, where Jesus is, and
stops before the vestibule of the elegant mansion of Simon the Pharisee.