Page:Profit and loss, or, The Christian merchant.pdf/17



CCEPT this paper, as a proof, that though unfortunate, you are not without a friend. True, it was an evil hour in which you listened to temptation, and made a sacrifice of that virtue which by all, and especially by women, should be held more dear than life. Have you not thought thereon and wept? Oh that you may shed the rears of unfeigned penitence, and now, at last, obtain mercy to forgive, and grace effectually to restore you!

The awful step, to which you ascribe your present situation, was accompanied (we are willing to believe,) with sharp misgivings, and immediately followed with confusion and alarm. At the sight of a virtuous friend, you reddened with shame; the growing, apprehension of discovery oppressed your life; and fatally, alas! you quitted the shelter which a parent's or-some benefactor’s wing would have still afforded —The partner of your crime cared not that he had broken up the peace of a family; he soon became weary of his victim, and then thrust her forth upon the unpitying world.

Ah! did you not despond too soon, and desponding, did you not form the most desperate resolution to sin yet more? Had you even then taken your guilty and distracted soul to a gracious