Public morals / [James Marchant, editor].

Date:
[between 1900 and 1910]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Public morals / [James Marchant, editor]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the announcement! She literally gasped for breath; her face assumed an ashen hue; and then suddenly she burst into a flood of tears. It was some time before she could control herself sufficiently to speak; but presently she exclaimed, in a voice broken with emotion— “ Oh, sir, I am so glad! I never hoped to meet you. Can you tell me anything about Sarah G ? She is my sister.” Thus had this marvellous chain of circum- stances become re-linked ! Here was the older sister of whom I had heard, but had never seen, and whose own sinful and degraded mother in Portsmouth had years before worked her daughter’s moral and spiritual ruin ! Yes, here, in the northern metropolis, after an interval of five years, on this bleak winter’s night, I had found, living in a pit of iniquity, the elder sister of little Sarah G , the bright, winsome, thirteen-year-old lass whom I had previously rescued from a like home so far away, and who was now in decent and Christian service. The woman was deeply moved as she listened to all I gladly told her of her sister. Her excitement reached its climax when, my tale being ended, she cried aloud, in a paroxysm of tears— “ Oh, sir, for God’s sake, save my poor children also ! ” The unhappy creature was completely broken with conflicting emotions, among which gratitude and hope were certainly the strongest. Love for her children was the little joint in the harness through which her heart had at length been reached and softened! I could not repress a fervent “ Thank God ! ”