Your father loved her, and they were in God's sight more truly husband
and wife than the soulless and loveless ceremony of the law made her and
her legal husband afterward.
It is a great misfortune that your parents lacked the self-control which
is necessary to every well-balanced human being who seeks for the
fullest development. It is a sad thing that over your life this shadow
of unlegalized birth must rest.
But were I given the choice to-day to be what you are, or what your
sister is, and what thousands of children born of loveless marriages
are, I would not for one second hesitate in my choice.
The world needs marriage laws to keep any order in society.
The wisely reared and well-balanced woman will keep herself in womanly
reserve for her legal husband.
Your mother, by a moment's weakness and loss of self-control, left a
blight upon her life for ever, and a shadow upon yours.
But do not for one instant think of yourself as anything but _a child of
God_, endowed with all the wealth of the spiritual kingdom, whatever the
law may withhold from you here.
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