Ahh, Dear Sister Hester, your courage to stand against the corrupt hypocritical legalism of the religious pharisees of your day is inspiring. Let us cast our sin to God alone, let Him cast those sins to the depths...as far as the east is from the west. To Him alone, He will judge. While you and I confess not the same transgressions, to God all is like filthy rags before him. We ask, does Heaven have a limit of Mercy? Hester, you and I know, only man limits his Mercy. You are a courageous woman. I have read this passage over and over, I understand you...while our sins are different, all the same, I understand. Let what was meant for evil be used for Good...In Christ alone can it be achieved.

“Woman, transgress not beyond the limits of Heaven’s mercy!” cried the Reverend Mr. Wilson, more harshly than before. “That little babe hath been gifted with a voice, to second and confirm the counsel which thou hast heard. Speak out the name! That, and thy repentance, may avail to take the scarlet letter off thy breast.”


“Never!” replied Hester Prynne, looking, not at Mr. Wilson, but into the deep and troubled eyes of the younger clergyman. “It is too deeply branded. Ye cannot take it off. And would that I might endure his agony, as well as mine!” 


“Speak, woman!” said another voice, coldly and sternly, proceeding from the crowd about the scaffold. “Speak; and give your child a father!” 


“I will not speak!” answered Hester, turning pale as death, but responding to this voice, which she too surely recognized. “And my child must seek a heavenly Father; she shall never know an earthly one!” 


“She will not speak!” murmured Mr. Dimmesdale, who, leaning over the balcony, with his hand upon his heart, had awaited the result of his appeal. He now drew back, with a long respiration. “Wondrous strength and generosity of a woman’s heart! She will not speak!”

~The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne