Australian Tales - Setis

luxury to me. Disease, delirium, madness! have poisoned my blood! have
wrecked me!” Poor girl! what a wasted life of misery has yours been!
Who can understand the anguish of your blasted heart? Tottering old
roués look at her! Fast young men look at her! Mothers and sisters look
at her! May God look in pity upon her, and may He inspire many
Christian hearts to pity her, and others who are like her, dreary wanderers
on the world's wide stage.
Mary has recently come from Melbourne in search of Lionel Wolfe;
and she harbours wild vengeance in her heart. She will perhaps try to
murder him if they meet, and then commit suicide, for she is desperate.
There she stands, on the verge of perdition; but she must not be suffered
to go over, while she is within the reach of Christian hands. “Haste to the
rescue.” Her blood will be upon your head if you allow her to perish
without attempting to save her.
* * * * *
There is a “Home” in this city for such as she; and polluted as she is,
she will be gladly received within its walls, and have all her wants kindly
attended to. There she may find a refuge from the cold winds and still
colder blasts of the world's scorn. There she will be led to Him who
kindly suffered such an one as she to wash his sacred feet with her tears;
to her Saviour, who loves her, who will graciously receive her, and fill
her poor torn heart with peace, such as she never felt, even in the
blithesome days of her childhood; He will gently guide her along life's
rugged road, and when she arrives at her journey's end receive her
cleansed soul into His glorious rest.
All honour to those benevolent ladies and gentlemen who conduct the
Female Refuge. Through their noble efforts many fallen women have
been lifted up, almost from the depths of despair, and restored to the path
of virtue. The great day alone will declare the sum total of good, which
has been wrought by that excellent institution.
Reader! help it with an annual contribution. It will be money well
invested, and help to make its freely offered hospitality known to those
homeless wanderers, who you so often see staggering in your pathway.
Pity the poor creatures, and try to turn them gently round and put them
on the road to heaven. And if this should be read by one of those forlorn
ones; I beg of her to go at once, knock at the door of the Refuge, and
therein find rest for her weary body and mind.