Page:The Female Advocate.djvu/115

 poverty as to sustain it; for, thus miserably situated, to have any of their former acquaintance witness their wretchedness, must be a very trying circumstance indeed, and especially since, by woeful experience, they are taught to know that little more than censure will be derived from it.

Indeed, amidst the great variety of complicated ills which are attendant upon all mankind, and from which not any are exempt, there will appear several in the world, the origin of whose woe is scarcely to be traced; and who, as a much admired author (Dr. Gregory) observes, will find none to compassionate, or even understand their sufferings: witness amongst the prodigious numbers of unhappy females in the married state, whom the adversity of fate has left alone to wander through all this labyrinth of difficulties, and, perhaps, surrounded by a numerous train of children, who alike must feel the supercilious sneers of taunt and reprobation, for they know not what. Indeed, this subject would alone open a very wide and dreary field to range in, so various and complicated are the calamities