be the force of the statement when applied to conditions as above described! My heart always goes out to these poor girls who are sent away to the homes of people of whom they know almost nothing, but must go with the one idea of being subject to the laws of that home. Often they go without any consent on their part or any sympathy from those whose duty it is to sympathize with them in all their troubles. I now recall an incident that occurred some years since which I shall not soon forget. I was away out in the country in the mountains on a preaching tour, and stopped one Friday evening to spend the night in an inn. That night a rain came on and continued the next day so we could not travel, so there was nothing to do but to stay there till Monday. Sunday morning I heard some one crying in the woman's department — for it should be remembered that I was out in the men's department and had not seen the "inside of the house," as the women's department is often called. The crying continued till my heart was touched with the pitiful wailing of the child, and I asked the men that were with me what was the trouble and why the child continued to cry so much. The answer was: "It is only a bride that is about to be taken to her husband's house." In the afternoon two men came with a chair. There was no groom on horseback attended by lantern bearers and other friends, but just these two men who were to carry the chair and in it the poor little girl, who had most likely never spent a single night away from her father's house. Now she was to go, where she did not know! She knew only that it was the custom of
