In the opening of this subject we find the callow youth as he points towards the city's spires, exclaiming to his dear old mother, "Mother, there in the big city is my sphere. There will I turn the world over." Off he goes cityward, ambitious and presumptuous, and perhaps we may add reckless. Alas, the city's whirl is quite a change from the simple quiet life in the country and the youth falls a victim to the snares that beset the unsophisticated.

A young maiden is seduced by a charming traveling peddler who persuades her to steal from her host family in order to repay his gambling debts.

A wealthy, callous moneylender finds a terrifying way to learn about money's limitations.

During the Civil War a young soldier loses his nerve in battle and runs away to his home to hide; his sister puts on his uniform, takes her brother's place in the battle, and is killed. Their mother, not wanting the shameful truth to become known, closes all the shutters (hence the film's title) and keeps her son's presence a secret for many years, though two boyhood chums stumble upon the truth...

Griffith adapts the story of the Apocryphal Book of Judith to the screen. During the siege of the Jewish city of Bethulia by the Assyrian tyrant Holofernes, a widow named Judith forms a plan to stop the war as her people suffer in starvation, nearly ready to surrender.