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Page:The Female Advocate.djvu/82

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are always permanent; the dark and crooked paths of fate are, by the unerring hand of Divine Providence, hid from mortal eyes: nor can we see into futurity. "To-day we are here, and to-morrow in the grave;" or, according to the Proverbs, chap. xxvii. v. 1. "Who knoweth what a day may bring forth?" For how often does death, insatiable death, unexpectedly snatch, in a moment, the indulgent parent from the beloved child, who is at once left at large in the wide world, perhaps in the morning of her days, and in all the simplicity of artless youth, without a provision, or any means of obtaining one. Pitiable object! thy fate seems hard indeed: yet so it but too frequently happens to hundreds, besides thyself. Where wilt thou go, to secure thee from real want? A parish workhouse is but a poor consolation for so great a loss, at a period when neither reason nor religion is ripened into maturity, to moderate the grievance. But, if, perhaps, a friend step forward, the Asylum for the protection of Orphan Girls may receive the poor fugitive; in which blessed and happy institution, through time, the memory