of which the collective world is always ready to be guilty. A woman who "gets a husband," no matter by what base arts or design, is "received"; a woman who gives the world a child otherwise than according to law is cast out, often by those who are not worthy to touch the hem of her garment. It is not necessary to justify women who err in this way before condemning the pharisaic righteousness which stones them into despair. "Neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more." --Compare the wrong done in such a case with the conduct of a "respectable" young woman whose sudden disappearance from her home near Waterford, New York, caused much excitement. She reappeared after a week's absence, and accused three young men of the place of abducting her. They were rather wild fellows, and they were arrested. But upon investigation the story was found to be a pure fabrication. The girl had gone suddenly off to visit some of her relatives; and to gratify some feeling, whatever it might have been, she trumped up this accusation. It is impossible to conceive a fouler, baser act. And yet she will not be an outcast; she is "respectable"; no one will venture to call her a "bad girl." But suppose that He who said "neither do I condemn thee" were to decide between the relative fitness of the two for a place in His kingdom--is there any doubt in whose favor He would speak? The law cannot decide as He would decide; and the world is right in insisting upon the chastity of woman; but is the world right in regarding chastity as the only female virtue, or at least in regarding a lapse from continence as the only wrong which should exclude woman from the pale of decent society, and deprive her of a right to earn her living among other women? Is it right in asking only one question in regard to a woman's conduct and in "receiving" a married woman, merely because she is married, although she may make her home a little hell for her husband and her children? We are not advocating looseness upon the former point, but only comparing the world's treatment of natural error with its treatment of essential and malicious wrong-doing. If the one should be condemned--and it should be--what should be done in case of the other? Motive gives every act its true character; and if we teach women that a life filled with acts the motives of which are mean and malicious may be "respectable," are we not subjecting them to a daily discipline of moral degradation?