Trial and Triumph | Page 7

had so wickedly imposed upon her. He had
left A.P. before Lucy's death and gone to the Pacific coast where he
became wealthy through liquor selling, speculation, gambling and other
disreputable means, and returned with gold enough to hide a multitude
of sins, and then fair women permitted and even courted his society.
Mothers with marriageable daughters condoned his offences against
morality and said, "oh, well, young men will sow their wild oats; it is
no use to be too straight laced." But there were a few thoughtful
mothers old fashioned enough to believe that the law of purity is as
binding upon the man as the woman, and who, under no conditions,
would invite him to associate with their daughters. Women who tried to
teach their sons to be worthy of the love and esteem of good women by
being as chaste in their conversation and as pure in their lives as their
young daughters who sat at their side sheltered in their pleasant and
peaceful homes. One of the first things that Frank Miller did after he
returned to A.P. was to open a large and elegantly furnished saloon and
restaurant. The license to keep such a place was very high, and men
said that to pay it he resorted to very questionable means, that his place
was a resort for gamblers, and that he employed a young man to guard
the entrance of his saloon from any sudden invasion of the police by
giving a signal without if he saw any of them approaching, and other
things were whispered of his saloon which showed it to be a far more
dangerous place for the tempted, unwary and inexperienced feet of the
young men of A.P., than any low groggery in the whole city. Young
men who would have scorned to enter the lowest dens of vice, felt at
home in his gilded palace of sin. Beautiful pictures adorned the walls,
light streamed into the room through finely stained glass windows,
women, not as God had made them, but as sin had debased them, came
there to spend the evening in the mazy dance, or to sit with partners in
sin and feast at luxurious tables. Politicians came there to concoct their
plans for coming campaigns, to fix their slates and to devise means for
grasping with eager hands the spoils of government. Young men
anxious for places in the gift of the government found that winking at
Frank Miller's vices and conforming to the demoralizing customs of his
place were passports to political favors, and lacking moral stamina,
hushed their consciences and became partakers of his sins.[4] Men

talked in private of his vices, and drank his liquors and smoked his
cigars in public. His place was a snare to their souls. "The dead were
there but they knew it not." He built a beautiful home and furnished it
magnificently, and some said that the woman who married him would
do well, as if it were possible for any woman to marry well who linked
her destinies to a wicked, selfish and base man, whose business was a
constant menace to the peace, the purity and progress of society. I
believe it was Milton who said that the purity of a man should be more
splendid than the purity of a woman, basing his idea upon the
declaration, "The head of the woman is the man, and the head of the
man is Jesus Christ." Surely if man occupies this high rank in the
creation of God he should ever be the true friend and helper of woman
and not, as he too often proves, her falsest friend and basest enemy.

Chapter IV
"Annette," said Mrs. Harcourt one morning early, "I want you to stir
your stumps to-day; I am going to have company this evening and I
want you to help me to get everything in apple pie order."
"Who is coming, grandma?"
"Mr. Thomas and Mrs. Lasette."
"Mrs. Lasette!" Annette's eyes brightened. "I hope she will come; she is
just as sweet as a peach and I do love her ever so much; and who else?"
"Brother Lomax, the minister who preached last Sunday and gave us
such a good sermon."
"Is he coming, too?" Annette opened her eyes with pleased surprise.
"Oh, I hope he will come, he's so nice."
"What do you know about him?"
"Why, grandmother, I understood everything that he said, and I felt that
I wanted to be good just like he told us, and I went and asked aunt 'Liza

how people got religion. She had been to camp-meeting and seen
people getting religion, and I wanted her to tell me all about it for I
wanted to get it too."
"What did she tell you?"
"She told me that