Correspondence Department. PENITENT FEMALE ASYLUMS. To the Editor of " The Females' Advocate." MR. EDITOR, I feel deeply interested in the success of the London Female Mission and its periodical publication, because that success appears to be identified with the extension of one of the most important forms of Christian charity in our native land, and the restoration of numberless penitents to the paths of piety and virtue. This specific form of charity the Saviour of the world has ennobled by the weight of his divine example and authority. It is evident from the records of the New Testament that some of those who became his most devoted and illustrious converts were found among the unfortunate daughters of passion and seduction: and the history of Mary Magdalen* displays the tenderness of Christ's compassion in its most affecting aspect. To us there is something singularly grand and sublime in this particular feature of our Saviour's character-something that proves that character to be essentially superhuman, supernatural, divine-above all the conceits, prejudices, and enmities of mortal men. None but the Lord of glory could have condescended with such ineffable dignity, such matchless propriety and delicacy, to commiserate and relieve those unhappy outcasts. No instance of this sublime and sympathizing philanthropy can be found in the venerated memorials of Our esteemed correspondent has fallen into the very common opinion which makes Mary Magdalen to have been an unchaste woman, an opinion which we deem it necessary to say we consider unfounded. ED. classic history. Even Socrates, while he exerted himself for the moral improvement of men, seems to have despised and disregarded the female victims of licentiousness. And in general this class of hapless and pitiable transgressors lay under the scorn and reprobation of those that called themselves philosophers, Christ, however,, acted on a principle of philanthropy infinitely loftier and more universal than any thing that the philosophers had conceived, even in the highest flights of their benevolence. The philanthropy of Christ not only included and embraced the whole human race in its wide and boundless circumference, but applied itself with a most special force of operation to those peculiar forms of human calamity which the philosophers had scorned to notice. And thus the philanthropy of God is not only infinitely more general, but infinitely more particular than the philanthropy of man. The intensity of the divine compassion exactly corresponds and keeps pace with the intensity of human misery, so that where sin abounded there grace superabounds," for Christ came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance," and "there is more joy among the angels over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety-nine just persons that need no repentance." - Such being the specific characteristic of the Christian religion as distinguished from all others,—such being the idiosyncracy of Christian philanthropy as distinguished from every form of natural sympathy and kindness, we have the key to all the benevolent actions of our Saviour. His kindness, his affection, his charity were not confined to the honest, the respectable, the deserving, but they were extended, and that with most marked and emphatic energy, towards the opposite order of characters. His divine benevolence was not content with blessing his friends; it went on to bless his enemies, and it was in this love of enemies that it found its triumph, for thus it cast coals of fire on their heads, to melt, not to consume them. Need we wonder then that Christian charity sought out its most especial objects among the vicious, the debauched, the dissolute, the violent, the outcast, and the vagabond? I should not have stated this peculiarity of Christian charity so broadly did it not directly apply itself to the London Female Mission and all the benevolent institutions for the restoration of penitent females. To all such institutions I am especially attached, just because they appear to me to act out the peculiar characteristic of Christian charity in an eminent degree. And this is the precise argument I take up against all those inconsiderate people who say, "We will support institutions intended for the honest and the virtuous, but we will not support institutions like these, intended for the reformation of the profligate and the abandoned." The noblest answer that can be made to objections like these is contained in our Lord's sermon on the Mount. "You have heard that it has been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thy enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies; bless those that curse you; do good to those that hate you; and pray for those that despitefully use you and persecute you." Those who enter most completely into the spirit of their Master, and who are taught to hate all iniquity with perfect hatred, will therefore be disposed to assist all charities of this kind to the utmost of their power. They will desire to promote that union, coalition, and co-operation, among them, by which all and each will be singularly strengthened and augmented, and to recommend those penitent female charities to the public in general as worthy of their utmost patronage and support.. It will afford me much pleasure to find that the public give ample encouragement to the London Female Mission, not only because it forms the natural centre and focus of this kind of philanthropy, but also because it has distinguished itself by extraordinary energy, in meeting a great variety of cases; and I shall be still more rejoiced to see the public benevolence extending itself to the eight or ten kindred charities in the metropolis that support the same cause and promote the same compassionate design. The great accession of energy and encouragement which has recently been experienced by these noble societies affords gratifying evidence that the public is beginning to awake to the immense importance of the subject; but the energetic philanthropy of these societies, endeavouring to meet the earnest and heart-rending calls for assistance made upon them, has hitherto outstripped the public subscriptions. They therefore seek by means of their little periodicals, their cards of subscription, and other means, to increase the funds devoted to the promotion of virtue and happiness among unfortunate women; and I rejoice in the hope that the public benevolence will enable them to do infinitely more than has ever yet been done for the reformation of female morals in the metropolis, and to extend their operations till branch societies shall be established in other large cities and towns at home and abroad. I am convinced, Mr. Editor, that the more they are known-the more they bring the nature of their philanthropic designs home to the public-the more they will be esteemed and enriched. Theirs is a form of charity in which all are deeply interested, not only in a social but an individual sense. What numbers of persons are there who will feel bound to support charities like these, if it be only to express their contrition for their own past delinquences! What numbers of persons are there who, though they cannot be themselves charged with having ever increased the amount of debauchery and suffering, yet feel an intense interest in saving others from the calamities and degradations of the vicious! Nor are gentlemen alone deeply interested in lessening a public corruption to which themselves and their sons are incessantly exposed; but men of the lower orders ought to be more particularly hostile to that overwhelming stream of public licentiousness in which not only their sons but their daughters are in danger of being swallowed up. Ladies too should here stand forward in the cause of piety and virtue, for the honour of their sex. In proportion as they support charities like these are they likely to preserve the respectability of female servants and to ensure their improvement. It is almost impossible to estimate too highly the importance of the reformation of female morals regarded in a social point of view. When a woman falls into vice she generally makes vice her profession, and thus a single vicious woman becomes the corruptor of perhaps a hundred individuals. She becomes a fountain of public licentiousness, which may be extended by a law of geometric progression over the whole surface of society. Hence the immeasurable importance of checking this vice as soon as possible. Here, if any where, we should recollect the rule obsta principiis, and not wait donec mala per longas convaluere moras. Let it not be said that charitable institutions like |