“If I become a Christian, I want to unite with the church. If I give the name I am now wearing to be placed on the church register, I shall be living and practicing a lie. If I give my maiden name, I shall expose my mistake, bring disgrace upon my family, brand my child with illegitimacy, and lose my position as a teacher, whereby I make my living, support my child and am able to live a pure life. What must I do?” The person to whom she related this story was greatly perplexed for an answer. Though a godly man, a minister, the double standard of morals had so biased his thinking that he was not prepared to give her a fair and just answer. Hoping that additional light might help him out of his dilemma, he asked her to tell him what led to her fall. She replied, “After the death of father and brother, our bread winners and protectors, mother, sisters and I made our living by keeping student boarders from a church college. One of our boarders, a young law student, made love to me, won my affections and complete confidence. We were engaged to be married on the day of his graduation. Only a few months before this event he asked for privileges that belonged only to the married. I was perfectly shocked and dazed. I resented the request as an insult. He insisted that he meant no offense, that he considered that we loved and trusted each other as much as we possibly could after we were married. He insisted that we were as truly one as if we were married, that the mere legal phase was only a custom and had no moral significance and that it was very common for the engaged to enjoy this privilege. After many days of entreaty, promise of marriage oft repeated, and loving caresses, I made the profound mistake of my life. “Some weeks before the commencement, I discovered that I was to be a mother. I pleaded with him for immediate marriage. He insisted that marriage would interfere seriously with his examination work and that he was to begin his legal profession in a distant state and that marriage could be safely delayed until commencement. On the gay day of his graduation he suggested that he had our future home in a distant state rented and furnished awaiting our arrival. He suggested that marriage there would be rather romantic. I accepted the idea. We arrived in the town, on a late night train, where he was to practice law. A hackman conveyed us to our new home. I found it as he had described it. We spent the night as husband and wife. The next morning he suggested that we had thoughtlessly made a very serious mistake, that to get married there would ruin me socially and him in his profession. He suggested a plan that appeared wise to me, viz.: after a few weeks to take a train to some distant state and there be married. Later he suggested that we had better wait until the baby was born. Not until the child was two years old did I ever doubt his purpose of marriage.