This is practically the language used to fallen women, and chiefly by their own sex: “God may forgive you, but we never can!” a declaration which, however common, in spirit if not in substance, is, when one comes to analyse it, unparalleled in its arrogance of blasphemy. That for a single offence, however grave, a whole life should be blasted, is a doctrine repugnant even to Nature’s own dealings in the visible world.
