' A
simultaneous movement of obeisance rippled over the audience, with
a murmured 'Thank you;' and a smile was spread upon those sad
countenances, like sunrise sparkling on a pool." A few words from this
discourse,--which was extemporaneous, but of which she afterward made
an imperfect record,--will show the temper in which she spoke:--
'I have passed other Christmas days happily, but never felt
as now, how fitting it is that this festival should come among
the snows and chills of winter; for, to many of you, I
trust, it is the birth-day of a higher life, when the sun of
good-will is beginning to return, and the evergreen of hope
gives promise of the eternal year. * * *
'Some months ago, we were told of the riot, the license, and
defying spirit which made this place so wretched, and the
conduct of some now here was such that the world said:--"Women
once lost are far worse than abandoned men, and cannot be
restored." But, no! It is not so! I know my sex better. It is
because women have so much feeling, and such a rooted respect
for purity, that they seem so shameless and insolent, when
they feel that they have erred and that others think ill of
them.
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