Page:An address to women (Goodwin).djvu/24

 The other instance which I purpose to quote from Gospel history is also a Mary, but a very different one. You remember the poor woman who is described as one out of whom our Lord cast seven devils. We do not know much about the early history of that woman; it is always believed she belonged to the lowest, the saddest, the most heart-breaking class of women. If anything could touch our hearts, if anything could sadden our minds, it is the knowledge that it is possible for the glory and the beauty and the purity of womanhood to be dragged in the dirt as it is by that class to which I have referred. Mary Magdalen appears to have been one of that infinitely degraded class; but she felt her sin, and her sins were brought home to her by the loving words of Christ. He stooped down to her from the high position which He occupied as the Son of Man and as the Son of God. He gave her encouragement. He gave her hope, He gave her strength; and she by the grace of the Holy Ghost was enabled to seize, as it were, upon the hem of His garment and to be dragged up out of the filth into which she had fallen.

Here we have the two extremes of womanhood brought together in their common connection