Page:The Female Advocate.djvu/85

 withstanding "God hath given to every one the charge of his neighbour."

This excellent charge being so very seldom put in practice, superadded to her youth and inexperience, she not being sufficiently armed with that fortitude, which is so necessary in her time of trial, and seeing the frowns of the world against her, she naturally perseveres, and even launches out still farther in the stream of those false and mistaken pleasures, which cannot fail to terminate in her destruction; and, perhaps, at length, she triumphs in obtaining (what she thinks) protection from those whose acknowledged right it is to guard the weaker sex.

But here, alas! under the specious name of friendship, she too soon sees her mistake, and finds herself the real object of distress, abandoned by the world, and left to her own bitter reflections; until the kind hand of Providence once more takes her under protection, and admits her a member of that humane charity, the Magdalen; where, in a small degree, she is once more permitted to taste a portion of comfort, by the cheering rays of