Once I was an innocent, beautiful, virtuous, religious and ambitious girl; I went to school and had lofty ideas of doing big things in life. I hoped some day to have a good husband and a happy home. I loved the church. I believed the Bible. I went to Sunday school. I was much loved and admired by my friends.

Then some whom I believed to be my friends made me believe that my happiness depended on being smart; that only popularity and pleasure were ideal. And I was told that "Everybody was doing it." After seeing the ads of the cigarette companies on television and in magazines and on billboards; watching my so-called friends indulging, I was influenced to smoke and got a great kick in smoking in public places; puffing smoke in other's faces.

Having lost my desire to go to church or to be with the Lord's people, I went with the crowds to dance halls, road houses and cocktail rooms. I soon became brazen enough to call for a drink at the bar. I learned to gamble, play the horses and had my late hour dates.

Now I have had my fling. I've been a "modern" girl. I have had my personal liberty but what has it gotten me? My life is wasted. My virtue is gone. All my real friends are gone. My beauty has vanished. What do I have left? Here I sit, an old, ugly, bleary-eyed, blotched-faced, cigarette smoking, half-crazed drunken sot. I have spurned everything that was good, noble, refined, beautiful, moral and spiritual. The new friends I made are just as miserable as I am. My body is decaying with disease, my motherly instincts are dead, my good family name is disgraced, my character is ruined, my ambitions are gone! My past is evil, my present is hell, and my future is dark.

GIRLS, the above is a true story. The one who wrote it desires to remain unknown, but she is known to God and to her father and mother, who recently laid her diseased corpse in a cheap grave in a western city. PLEASE DON'T FOLLOW IN HER STEPS!

Truth Magazine VII: 9, pp. 7
June 1963