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And Hall Caine could have given no more conclusive proof of his courage and his earnestness of purpose than in selecting as the motif of this book that outrage upon justice, that travesty on morality; the condemnation of woman for a crime that is readily ignored or as readily forgiven in man. It is really such an outworn theme that the very mention of it is greeted with smiles or supercilious shrugs, and even lovers of their kind have grown apologetic about it. If any man like John Storm, fired with the best and truest principles of Christianity, steady of eye and bold of heart and fearless of speech, dared to utter such principles as his in any social circle of any one of our cities, what a consternation he would create; and here as in London he would be called a madman and avoided as an outcast. Yet what was his creed? “Let him that is without sin amongst you cast the first stone at her.” We have heard it before, have we not?–but in leaving it out of our Revised Version we have taken care to leave it out of our practice as well, and are very busy casting stones, though in truth not one of us is without sin.

The author of “The Christian” has loosed many a shaft that will surely pierce between the joints of the armor; and not the least of these is the story of a young girl’s marriage to the abandoned young lord, the man who had dragged Polly to ruin which ended in suicide. We see such things every day, and it is not polite to call them by their names. For that is the bitterness of it; that ruin and disgrace and the swift downward road to hell are set by society before the feet of the woman who errs, while for the man who was at least her equal partner in crime, there are cordial greetings, and a thousand doors, opened by women, alas!–and he may have some pure girl for a wife, if he likes, and go serenely every evening to a happy home, untroubled by remorse. Is it any wonder, with the scales so unevenly balanced as this, with a premium put on corruption among men, that new and ever new recruits from womanhood are marching down into the infected quarter of our cities, and that the wretched army grows and will grow?

True, there are good women, here and there, making earnest effort to “rescue” some of this miserable horde; and here and there one is gathered into some house of refuge, and is helped to give up her evil life. But even there, are the hopes held out before them such brilliant hopes? One goes back to her old home and her mother, and is thenceforward a marked creature among all the people who have known her, doomed to cold avoidance or impudent familiarity. One succeeds in getting work, of some menial kind, and must live a life of utter subjection of self and utter abnegation of pleasure, or will be suspected that she has a secret longing for the old life. Many hide themselves in convent walls, knowing what kind of welcome the world would have for them if they went forth. If they could look over those walls, and could be gifted with some far-seeing vision, they could see the men who helped them to become criminals, abroad and at ease, riding or driving in the free sunlight, bending over jeweled fingers or whispering pretty nothings into dainty ears, as much approved by all the world as though their records were as pure as snow. Servitude or convent walls for one, even after she has repented; the world and its gaieties for the other, to whom remorse is unknown. No doubt the woman should be punished, and her punishment should be as great as her sin has been; but one would like to see the man who was guilty, equally with her, at least avoided a little; at least made to know that there were circles of society sufficiently refined to shut him out.