
This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project 
to make the world's books discoverable online. 

It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject 
to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books 
are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover. 

Marks, notations and other marginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the 
publisher to a library and finally to you. 

Usage guidelines 

Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the 
public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing this resource, we have taken steps to 
prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying. 

We also ask that you: 

+ Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for 
personal, non-commercial purposes. 

+ Refrain from automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine 
translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the 
use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help. 

+ Maintain attribution The Google "watermark" you see on each file is essential for informing people about this project and helping them find 
additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it. 

+ Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just 
because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other 
countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of 
any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner 
anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liability can be quite severe. 

About Google Book Search 

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers 
discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web 



at |http : //books . google . com/ 



v.^^ 




^/MJKniiix^ 




^ 



William B. Cairns Collection 

Of 

American Women Writers 

1650-1920 



♦ 



l| 



William B. Cairns 

Professor of English 

University of Wisconsin-Madison 




^^ 



I 



l| 




se- 






Digiti: 



ized by Google 



^' ■>■■ ! 

1 



Digitized by 



Google 



/ 



Piours v/ith Girls. 



BY 



MRS. MARGARET E. SANGSTER, 

AUTHOR OF "may STANHOPE AND HER FRIENDS," "SPLENDID 
TIMES," ETC. 



«*Whcit8oever He saith unto you, do it" 




AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 

1 50 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK. 



Digitized by 



Google 



COPYRIGHT, 1881, 
BY AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY. 



Digitized by 



Google 



Akfi* P..:-k--: 



, /: 



/a/ 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 
The Right Use of Time page 5 

CHAPTER n. 
Self-Control 14 

CHAPTER III. 
Reading the Bible — 23 

CHAPTER IV. 
Courtship and Marriage 31 

CHAPTER V. 
Dress - 39 

CHAPTER VI. 
On Paying Your Way 48 

CHAPTER VII. 
Pen, Ink, and Paper 57 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Letter-Writing 64 

CHAPTER IX. 
Hospitality • -.--. 72 

CHAPTER X. 
The Gate of the Lips 79 



Digitized by 



Google 



4 CONTENTS, 

CHAPTER XL 
Days of Sorrow 86 

CHAPTER XH. 
Having a Grievance 94 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Courage -- loi 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Conversion and Consecration - no 

CHAPTER XV. 
Joining the Church 115 

CHAPTER XVI. 
The Temperance Reform 121 

CHAPTER XVII. 
Study at Home 127 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
Courtesy of Manner ' 132 

CHAPTER XIX. 
Being Yourself - 138 

CHAPTER XX. 
The Care of the Sick - 145 

CHAPTER XXL 
Economy and Extravagance 151 

CHAJ>TER XXIL 
One Thing at a Time 155 

CHAPTER XXIII. 
The Ideal Girl 158 



Digitized by 



Google 



HOURS WITH GIRLS. 



CHAPTER I. 
THE RIGHT USE OF TIME, 

The excuse most frequently offered for neglect of 
any kind of duty is want of time. To hear people talk, 
one would imagine that time was very partially dis- 
tributed, and that some persons had a great deal more 
of it g^ven them than others have. In fact, as we all 
know, there is no gift of God which is so exactly divi- 
ded and apportioned among his children. We have 
each the same number of hours in every day, and the 
queen in her palace has just as many as, and no more 
than, the little maiden who carries her father*s dinner 
to the mill. In this one particular, God has treated us 
all precisely alike. 

The possession of any talent, opportunity, or privi- 
lege implies a responsibility on the part of the posses- 
sor. Time is ours, not to be wasted, not to be spent 
in luxurious ease, and not to be lost in idle fretting. It 



Digitized by 



Google 



6 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

is ours to be improved. Let me tell you some of the 
ways in which we can best improve it. 

If I repeat the word system, I am prepared to hear 
some of you say, "Oh, do not come to us with that old 
story. We have been told to be systematic from our 
cradles, and really there is nothing which we are so tired 
of hearing." Patience, dear girls. I can sympathize 
with that one of you who said to me the other day, " I 
am emancipated at last ! I have spent six years of rou- 
tine at boarding-school, my life measured by the sound 
of bells ; a bell for this recitation, ^nd a bell for that ; 
and now I am free. But," she acknowleged frankly, 
** I confess that I do n't knpw what use to make of 
my freedom." There is a sort of reaction which most 
young people experience when, after graduation, they 
find themselves absolved from attendance upon the 
will of teachers and governors, and it finds expression 
in some such manner as this. Yet no conscientious 
and thoughtful person can long be contented to drift 
aimlessly through life. That training amounts to little 
which has trained towards nothing; and the best school, 
if it has simply crammed, and not given force and im- 
pulse to right and unselfish and generous endeavor, 
has written itself a failure. 

It is well to remember that system is bad or good, 
according as you serve it or compel it to serve you. It 
is not a good thing to be chained to your system, so 
that you have no personal liberty. It is a good thing 



Digitized by 



Google 



THE RIGHT USE OF TIME. 7 

to arrange your time in a general and orderly method, 
with a view to learning, thinking and accomplishing as 
much as you can every day. For instance, Eleanor 
decides that she will spend four hours daily at the pia- 
no, from nine until eleven in the morning, and from one 
until three in the afternoon. But her aunt Mary comes 
in to luncheon, and invites her to go to a picture-gal- 
lery and see a very beautiful painting, which will be on 
exhibition for a few days only. If Eleanor is the ser- 
vant of her system, it will make her unhappy to yield 
or postpone an hour of her afternoon practice, and she 
will decline the invitation, or accept it without real 
enjoyment. We never enjoy anything fully of which 
we have a question in our minds as to our right to 
enjoy it at all. If, on the contrary, her system is her 
servant, she will reason thus : " My aunt has been so 
kind as to offer me an hour of pleasure, a real treat, 
and I am glad it has come in my way. It is one of 
the unexpected good things which God sends me in 
some days of my life. I will let the piano rest, and 
make up the practice I miss, by degrees, during the 
week." 

The reason why, so often, courses of reading, 
courses of study, and such enterprises generally, fall 
through and are abandoned, is because they are found 
to be rigid, obtrusive, and inelastic. No young wom- 
an at home can invariably command her time for a 
purpose of her own. Frequently she must consult the 



Digitized by 



Google 



8 HOURS WITH GIRLS, 

convenience, the desires, and even the inclinations of 
her parents, brothers, and sisters. She who sets out to 
regulate her day with no reference to the claims and 
the comfort of the household, will discover that she is 
likely to be frustrated and embarrassed in half a dozen 
ways daily. If she persists in her plan, because it is 
hers, and because she regards self-culture as the high- 
est aim, she will be unamiable, unlpvely, and angular, 
and her influence in the family circle will not be sweet 
and helpful. 

What I would advise is, that every young girl 
should, so far as she can, ascertain wliat share of the 
housework and of the social obligations of the family is 
properly hers. Home is not merely a domicile, a roof 
and four walls, a place in which to eat and sleep. It is 
an abode in which kindred and friends, bound by dear- 
est ties and community of interests, are dwelling to- 
gether. It ought to be a place of quiet and satisfying 
repose — a place which is a type of heaven. An inhar- 
monious, unrestful, ill-assorted home is ^a very sad and 
pitiable blot in the world, a noxious weed instead of 
a fragrant flower. A daughter or sister can do very 
much toward filling her home with beauty and glad- 
ness if she choose. Think of it, girls. The Bible itself 
speaks of daughters polished after the similitude of a 
palace; and from the hour of your birth this is just what 
you have been to your parents. The crown -jewels are 
always guarded very carefully in a monarchy, and you 



Digitized by 



Google 



THE RIGHT USE OF TIME, 9 

are your parents* crown-jewels. They have tenderly 
watched over your childhood and youth, they have • 
given you every advantage in their power, and now 
they expect from you a return of their goodness, a 
recognition of their love, and a reward for their solici- 
tude. In the right use of your time, therefore, you 
must not leave them out. 

"What can I do to help my dear mother?" This 
should be a seriously-considered question with all 
girls. She has borne the burdfen many years. Can 
you lighten it in any degree ? 

There is a large and well-ordered home not far 
from my own. The two elder daughters are at pres- 
ent, as they express it, letting mother take a vacation, 
the first she has had in many years. One week Sarah 
supervises the kitchen and dining-room, and sees that 
the table is properly furnished with viands, and the 
economy of everything down stairs administered wise- 
ly. Helen at the same time takes charge of the par- 
lors, library, and bedrooms. The next week they 
change employments, and their mother lives a life of 
leisure and rest, having time to read, to go out, to re- 
ceive friends, and to take a well-earned holiday. Per- 
haps your mother would not like thus to delegate her 
authority to you for a while, but you may be sure she 
is willing to have you as her prime- minister. Some 
portion of the actual work, some sweeping, dusting, 
bed-making, bread-making, or fine ironing, you ought 



Digitized by 



Google 



10 HOURS WITH GIRLS, 

to accept as your own, to be attended to faithfully with 
your own hands. 

Let me quote a bit of Ruskin. I wish, among your 
ways of improving time, you would include much read- 
ing of the works of John Ruskin, a man who, with all 
his oddities and eccentricities, is constantly on the side 
of God in the world. He says, 

" Woman's work is, 

" I. To please people. 

" 2. To feed them 'in dainty ways. 

" 3. To clothe them. 

" 4. To keep them orderly. 

" 5. To teach them." 

About the fourth of thes^ departments of woman's 
work Mr. Ruskin says pithily, *' Begin by keeping 
things in order ; soon you will be able to keep people, 
also. Every day do a little bit of housemaid's work in 
your own house, thoroughly, so as to be a pattern of 
perfection in that kind." 

Now let me add my mite of experience to the opin- 
ion of the English critic and philosopher, by way of 
confirmation. Much useful time is wasted by girls and 
women in doing work of every kind sketchily and 
hastily and loosely. Be a ^^ pattern of perfection''' in 
your housework. If you dust, dust thoroughly. If you 
make cake, have it light and excellent. If you paint a 
picture on placque or cup or palette, imitate nature as 
exactly as you can. If you are learning a piece of 



Digitized by 



Google 



THE RIGHT USE OF TIME, 1 1 

music, do not slur over the difficult bars. If you are 
reading, read with attention. If you are dressing your- 
self for home eyes to see you in the morning, do it as 
neatly, as fastidiously, and as beautifully, as if you were 
making a toilet for a party. The dress for the break- 
fast-table or for the kitchen should not be so rich or so 
elaborate as that for an evening company, but it should 
be as clean, as refined, as tasteful, and as appropriate 
as the other, for the end to which it is designed. 

Having adjusted yourself to your duties, the quaint, 
homely little duties which have always been woman^s 
in the home, you may now look about and see what 
else you can find to do. Time is not ill -spent which is 
spent in recreation. You should, if possible, be out of 
doors, in the open air, under the sky, for at least three 
hours every day. You cannot have high health, good 
digestion, sound sleep, and • equal nerves, unless you 
are often and regularly in the air and taking rapid ex- 
ercise. The fine bloom on the cheek, the lustre in the 
eye, and the spring in the step, which are tokens of 
unimpaired health, are not to be had unless you spend 
many hours every week away from heated rooms and 
in the company of the air, the sunshine, and whatever 
else free and beneficent Nature has to bestow upon you. 
It is a duty to be in good health, if possible ; and prob- 
ably half the nervous invalids in the world could escape 
much suffering if they would obey God's laws written 
in their bodies. When health has been bartered away 



Digitized by 



Google 



12 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

in the pursuit of pleasure, or in reckless waste of any 
description, it cannot be regained unless at a great cost, 
and at the price it may be of years of effort. Time 
can be utilized best by those who are well, and every 
young girl should mean to be well, cheery, and strong, 
if she can. To this end she should neglect nothing 
which God puts within her reach for the preservation 
of health, animation, and vigor. 

Among the right uses of time, the daughters of the 
King should not fail to include self-denying effort for 
the unfortunate, the poor, or the suffering. Mary 
Lyon, the large-hearted and beautiful woman who 
founded Mount Holyoke Seminary, said in one of her 
conversations with her pupils, *' Sacred charity is a 
pledge of personal consecration. It may be made the 
test; if we give up in heart, we shall have an opportu- 
nity to carry it out in our lives. If we give in sacred 
charity, and give for Christ's sake, we must give so as 
to feel the loss of what we give continually." 

What is your position with regard to the Sunday- 
school cause, to domestic missionary and foreign mis- 
sionary enterprises, and to the poor and friendless chil- 
dren in your own town? Have you ever deprived 
yourself of a ribbon, a ruffle, a feather, or a flower, that 
you might contribute money to assist these causes of 
the Lord God ? Have you ever distinctly devoted a 
part of your time to the work of teaching ignorant boys 
to read and ignorant girls to sew ? They are not al- 



Digitized by 



Google 



THE RIGHT USE OF TIME, 13 

ways attractive or winsome or well-behaved, and some- 
times they are dirty, ragged, and repulsive in appear- 
ance ; but if a sweet Christian girl can go to India or 
China to teach children there the way to the cross, a 
sweet Christian girl ought to be willing to do the same 
work for the heathen at home. 

I say "sweet" advisedly. A bitter Christian, an 
acid, cross-grained, crooked Christian, is not living as 
she ought for her Master. " The cross," said one of 
the early fathers, " should be such a burden as wings 
are to a bird, helping us to soar and sing." 

She who has accepted Christ and taken his yoke, 
will find life opening before her as the summer opens 
with its procession of flowers. There will be about 
her, too, 

" An inborn grace that nothing lacks 
Of culture or appliance. 
The warmth of genial courtesy, 
The calm of self-reliance ;" 

because the most beautiful, least obtrusive, and most 
perfect grace, courtesy and self-reliance, are found 
among those who daily sit with Mary at the Master's 
feet. 



Digitized by 



Google 



14 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 



CHAPTER II. 
SELF-CONTROL, 

There is no home, however delightful, in which 
there do not occasionally arise little causes of provoca- 
tion or dispute. Annoyances and offences come. Ser- 
vants are trying and careless. Brothers and sisters do 
not look at things from the same standpoint; or pa- 
rents, in the exercise of their prerogative, are, it may 
be, hasty and injudicious. Human nature is always 
imperfect, and its imperfections mar the felicity of hu- 
man relationships. A home which should always be 
full of peace, happiness, arid unselfishness, wouldf be a 
very fitting type of heaven. z-i 

One great source of discord in the household is the 
fact that there are, frequendy, several people 'in it who 
desire to have.. their own way. It is mysterious, this 
clinging to one's own way, merely for the sake of hav- 
ing it, and when no real object of importance i^"tcr be 
gained by it ; and still we see it continually. ^ ^One ob- 
stinate, selfish child in a family can, by means of this 
disposition, so tyrannize over the others as to make 
everybody miserable. One such young woman, who 
has grown up without having learned the beauty of 



Digitized by 



Google 



SELF-CONTROL. 15 

humility, can metamorphose the fairest home into a 
place of strife and wretchedness. 

Now, girls, I want to impress upon you two or 
three thoughts which are well worth your considera- 
tion. The first is that, in itself, there is nothing lofty 
or noble in the desire to have one's way for merely 
selfish reasons. A book has lately been published 
which gives an inside view of Napoleon's court, as it 
was seen by a lady who was a maid of honor to the 
Empress Josephine. What a pitiable picture the con- 
queror of Europe presents ! Angrily stalking about 
the rich chambers of the fair palace of St. Cloud, dash- 
ing down chairs and tables in his insane wrath, terror- 
izing those who waited upon him by a torrent of fierce 

'words, and breaking the hearts of men and women, 
without regret or remorse — this was the way of a man 
who h^ led armies to victory, but who had not mas- 
tered hinjS^lf In a less conspicuous, but equally rep- 

4ghensible way, many an obscure domestic circle \% 
blighted and saddened by somebody whose conscience 
has not been educated in regard to the rights of others 
properly. The daughter or sister whose first thought 
is for herjt>wn satisfaction and pleasure, is in peril of 
drifting intc^ moods which will m^e her most unlovely 
and unloving^^; 

The next thought is, that we never really gain our 
own will if we are always consciously striving to do so. 
The deep, strong river has a noiseless flow, and its full 



Digitized by 



Google 



1 6 HOURS WITH GIRLS, 

tide carries the great ships to the sea. The noisy, fretting 
brook leaps and dances, and repeats its little songs and 
cries upon the stones, but it carries only its tiny cup 
of water to the large calm stream. There are natures 
ample and majestic as the river, and natures shallow 
and capricious as the brook. Which shall be yours? 
Depend upon it, the surest way to carry forward your 
purposes is to be willing, while doing so, to aid, com- 
fort, and bless the rest in their endeavors. In every 
house, in every community, in every nation, going on 
from the smaller to the larger, it is the self-controlled 
person who wins the day, who iiolds the balance of 
power, and who diffuses the widest influence. No per- 
sonal ascendancy is ever gained by scolding. The 
sharp, bitter tongue, may be potent in making people 
miserable, but after a while they become used to it, 
and it goes by them like the idle wind. 

I shall never forget my horror, when, myself a 
school-girl, I met the mother of one of my compan- 
j[pns. My own home, presided over by a mother who 
was a singularly sweet and winning, as well as thought- 
ful and earnest woman, was filled with the atmosphere 
of genuine affection and cordiality. Lilian invited me 
to visit her at her home. I went. Hardly had we 
crossed the threshold before I heard a shrill, high- 
pitched voice, in cutting accents storming away at a 
littie boy, who had fallen and torn his jacket. I started 
in surprise. Lilian blushed and said, ** Oh, that 's noth- 



Digitized by 



Google 



SELF-CONTROL, 17 

ing in this house. Mother is only angry at Jack ; and 
no wonder, for she cannot keep him looking decent, 
with all the pains she takes." 

Before long, I discovered that Jack was not the 
only victim of the mother's anger. My friend pre- 
sented me, and I was courteously and even affection- 
ately received, but the next instant attention was di- 
rected to some fault or lack in Lilian's attire, and she 
was talked to in a way that, from my mother, would 
well-nigh have broken my heart. A young Irish girl 
was doing the chamber work, and had left the stains of 
finger-marks upon the door. She was called back 
and ordered to obliterate them, with language so abu- 
sive and looks so menacing, that I wondered she 
remained in the house an hour. At the table, in the 
parlor, in the kitchen, everywhere from morning until 
night, the termagant kept on, scolding, flouting, finding 
fault, and distressing husband and children by her 
vituperation. 

Lilian saw my dismay and amazer lent, and actually 
laughed. " You see, dear," she remarked, ** my moth- 
er's bark is worst than her bite. She does everything 
for us all. She wears herself out for the baby. She 
sits up with us most tenderly if we are sick. She buys 
us whatever we ask for; and, as father says, if it 
amuses her to scold, why, let her do so. It does not 
hurt us, for we are used to it. We let her talk, and 
we do as we please." 

Hours with GirU. 2 



Digitized by 



Google 



i8 HOURS WITH GIRLS, 

Often and often since then have I remembered that 
unhappy lady, her frowning face, her rasping tones, 
and her perpetual unrest. No wonder her sons ran 
away from home, one to the West, and one to the sea. 
No wonder her daughters married without due weigh- 
ing of the character and fitness of those who sought 
them. Better was a dwelling anywhere, in tranquillity 
and composure, than an abode in wealth and luxury, 
with the accompaniment of harshness and ill temper. 

It will very probably fall to your lot, as you grow 
older, to have the care and oversight of others. This 
is my third thought. You will never be good house- 
keepers unless you learn the fine art of self-control. 

Domestic service in our country is in a very 
unsatisfactory state. We cannot depend upon obtain- 
ing skilled help in our kitchens. The foreigners who 
earn their living by cooking and washing and ironing, 
and housework of every description, are often coarse, 
ignorant, stupid, and inefficient. Yet, under the direc- 
tion and management of a kind, patient and judicious 
mistress, they often perform their duties quite satisfac- 
torily, and sometimes become highly respectable and 
valuable servants. Self-control on the part of the mis- 
tress is really all-important. To lose one's calmness 
because cups and saucers are chipped, because break- 
fast is delayed, because the cook is in a fractious mood, 
or because anything below stairs is a litde crooked, is 
altogether unworthy and ill-bred. Besides, it defeats 



Digitized by 



Google 



SELF-CONTROL. 19 

itself. You can never possess authority over those 
less carefully educated and less fortunately placed than 
yourself, unless you have yourself well in hand. It is 
well, in our dealings with servants, to remember that 
it is as unreasonable and as vain to look for absolute 
perfection among them as to expect to find it in their 
superiors in station. Do not limit yourself to finding 
fault with them when they fail; encourage them by 
judicious praise when they do well ; take an interest in 
their welfare, and let them see that you regard it, and 
you will have less cause to complain of" their unfaith- 
fulness. 

Should you ever have little children to guide and 
train, remember that, for their sakes, you must rule 
your voice, your tones, and your mind. The quiet 
mother, she who speaks low and gently, she who smiles 
sweetiy and pleasantly, she who rules her own spirit, 
has the well behaved and charming little circle of chil- 
dren around her. 

While you are still at home, you can acquire practice 
in self-control. The elder sister always has plenty ol 
opportunities. She has taken pains to arrange her 
room, which she shares with her younger sister or her 
little brother, and has felt real pleasure in seeing its 
perfect order and neatness. She goes out for an hour, 
and returning, sees at a glance that Bessie or Charlie 
has been in, and has carelessly left traces of occupa- 
tion. A hat is thrown upon the bed, a shawl on the 



Digitized by 



Google 



20 HOURS WITH GIRLS, 

floor, the books are displaced, and the closet-door is 
open. This is very annoying, but is it sufficientiy so 
to render it pardonable or even wise for her to speak 
indiscreetly, to utter passionate words, or to shed a 
flood of tears? For no greater cause than this, I have 
seen a young girl's composure completely overthrown. 
The sister ought to have and to exert a very de- 
cided influence over her brothers. Young men in the 
world are exposed to many subtle temptations. It is 
well for them if they have sisters whom they love and 
are proud of, and who can stand between them and 
the touch of evil. Be willing, dear Emily, to resign 
that attractive book, and play a duet with Arthur. 
Even if it cost you something, Louise, to try that 
rather childish game, which Harry and Frank think 
so fascinating, put your own letter-writing aside and 
gratify them. They are growing older every day, and 
these are golden hours, when you can knit their souls 
to yours by silken cords which will never lose their 
strength. You, Amy, have a brother who is the Hie 
and centre of the company he keeps. His gay laugh, 
his brilliant sallies and his witty repartees make him 
the delight and the envy of less gifted and duller 
young men. Such as he are the shining marks whom 
the adversary tries hardest to ruin with his enchant- 
ments. When he asks you, some evening, if you are 
willing to study German with him, giving up many 
hours a week to the difiicult language, do not hesitate 



Digitized by 



Google 



SELF-CONTROL, 2i 

to comply. The mutual study may be such a defence 
as you do not dream of. Every sister is, to some 
extent, her brother's keeper, and every sister should 
accept the responsibility which is laid upon her, and 
try to lead her brothers in the ways that ascend to 
honor and holiness. 

" Has self-control anything to do with this ?'* cries 
Edith, open-eyed. I reply, it has everything. Self- 
control implies self-sacrifice, it includes patience and 
perseverance. It is much more than mere good tem- 
per. It is the fairest flower of disciplined character. 

How glad I should be if all the bright faces that 
are bent over these pages would determine to accept, 
as the crowning bloom of womanhood, the high grace 
of unselfish love which the Bible everywhere inculcates. 
In honor preferring one another, bearing one another's 
burdens, lifting feeble hands, comforting sorrowful 
hearts, doing good every day — ^this is the ideal which 
should arise star-like before us. 

Like that fair princess of Hungary, who trod day 
after day the rocky steeps which led from her castie 
to the village below, bearing white loaves and brown 
to the starving and the sick, we should be ladies — 
givers of bread, almoners of a divine bounty. The 
legend says that when her stem husband was ready to 
stop her beneficent work, and she tremblingly uncov- 
ered her basket at his bidding, lo! roses, red and 
white, overflowed it in a rich and fragrant shower. 



Digitized by 



Google 



22 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

So, if we walk meekly and humbly before God, in 
the lowly round of common life and common duty, 
sweet flowers, full of perfume, will spring around our 
pathway. 

When Christiana and her children had left the 
Interpreter's house, their faces and forms were illumin- 
ated with a beautiful inward light, of which they were 
quite unconscious, though others perceived it with 
awe. The self-control which is sought in prayer, sets 
a new beauty on the countenance, and invests even 
plain and homely features with an expression which is 
a rare and marvellous charm. 

Remember that it is only in prayer, only in seek- 
ing before God, and only in renewed and consecrated 
effort that victory is born. We cannot keep ourselves. 
" Lord, be thou my helper !" must be our oft-repeated 
cry, and " Fear not, I will help thee," as oft will be the 
prompt answer from the Friend who is ever near. 



Digitized by VnOOglC 



READING THE BIBLE, 23 

CHAPTER III. 
READING THE BIBLE. 

The Bible is a book that never wears out. There 
are always a few favorite books which their owners 
read over and over, with ever-increasing delight. 
There are always a few selected authors who are to 
us as dear, personal friends. They have helped us 
when in trouble. They have comforted us when lone- 
ly, and they have strengthened us when weak. The 
Bible is a collection of books, by a number of authors, 
and the wonderful thing about it is, that there is not 
one page in the sacred volume which could be spared, 
nor one writer of the many known and unknown, who 
has not imparted blessing and consolation and abiding 
good for thousands of our race in every age. 

"I hear you say all this," exclaims Leonora, "yet 
I must confess that I do not enjoy the Bible. It is 
sometimes dull and monotonous to me. Often I plod 
through a chapter wearily. There is a great deal of 
it that I cannot understand, and a great deal that is 
expressed in language which seems to me obscure or 
obsolete. I do not take the interest in it that I do in a 
good, bright novel. I am surprised at you, and other 
friends, who do not regard the Bible as dry. I sup- 



Digitized by 



Google 



24 HOURS WITH GIRLS, 

pose it shocks you to hear me say this, but it is only 
the truth." 

It is better that you, dear Leonora, and those you 
represent, should be perfectly candid about this matter, 
than that you should seek to veil your real feelings. A 
doctor cannot do much to help the patient who will not 
believe that he is ill. A teacher cannot instruct the 
pupil who is convinced that he has already learned 
everything worth knowing. Your open confession that 
you cannot and do not find satisfaction in the study of 
the Scriptures makes it easier for me to point out one 
at least of the reasons why. And while I am doing 
this, I want to say a word to Emily, whose perplexity 
is quite different from yours. She wrote to me one 
day, complaining that she had moods and frames of 
mind which were strangely opposed to each other. *' I 
think," she said, " that I love God, and that I am try- 
ing to follow him ; but while I sometimes love to read 
the Bible, and am filled with a sweet and glad hopeful- 
ness as I take in the meanings of the verses, yet I am 
at other times quite indifferent to it. It is not always 
the same to me, and I am fitful in the amount of my 
reading, and have no special time to devote to it." 

Now to answer both these girls and both of the 
classes they represent, I must remind them of certain 
things which should never be forgotten. 

You have all seen a lamp, and you know how dif- 
ferent is a lighted from an unlighted one. The former 



Digitized by 



Google 



READING THE BIBLE. 25 

has a soul of flame, which flashes radiance upon all 
who approach it. The latter is a dead body, beautiful, 
perhaps, in form and cosdy in material, but powerless 
to direct any one through the darkness until the kin- 
dHng match has been applied to it. 

The Bible was said by one of old to be a lamp unto 
the feet and a light unto the path. That is really its 
use. There are hundreds who never find this out, and 
they read the Bible blindly, and grope blindly along 
the life-path, because they have not discovered the se- 
cret of illumination. 

The Holy Spirit's ofiice is to reveal the Bible to us. 
We must pray for him to make it plain to us. And 
having done this, we must use common sense in our 
study of it. Perhaps you have spent many months in 
learning a foreign language, French or German — or a 
dead language, Latin or Greek. It was hard, slow, 
painful plodding for a long while. The genders, the 
numbers, the cases, the conjugations, the pronuncia- 
tion, and the idiom, annoyed, distressed, and puzzled 
you; but you trusted your instructor, you toiled on 
with grammar and dictionary, and you hoped that one 
day what was hard would grow easy, and what was 
hidden be made manifest. There were treasures locked 
away in that unmastered tongue, and you could pos- 
sess yourself of them if you but hsul the key. 

One day of days you ascertained that you had 
really made progress. You began to see. Construc- 

Bouri with Gills. 



Digitized by 



Google 



26 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

tions and nice distinctions were no longer baffling. 
You were getting hold of a vocabulary, and the verbs 
were no longer like armed giants disputing every step 
of your way. You began to be aware that you, too, 
would be able to read classic literature, or penetrate 
into the realms of German poetry and French criticism. 
It had all come about so gradually, if you had been 
diligent and faithful in your study, that you could not 
tell the precise time at which you began to find more 
enjoyment than hard work in your persevering labor. 

To any one who will take the same pains to read 
and study the Bible as she would to read and study a 
branch of science, a history, or a foreign language, the 
Bible will yield the same reward, only in a greater 
measure, than any of these would. Ransack the Scrip- 
tures as you would ransack the house for the jewel you 
have lost, and you will be repaid by finding pearls of 
wisdom and diamonds of beauty. Study it regularly, 
faithfully, and thoroughly, and you will love the study. 

Lord Macaulay's plan in undertaking a foreign 
language was to begin at once with the Bible in that 
tongue, because the Bible contains always the greatest 
number of strong, homely, and popular words used by 
the people. John Bunyan, who had no books or learn- 
ing worth speaking of, so studied the Bible that he ab- 
sorbed its culture, and it became more to him than 
universities are to most of their graduates. Not alone 
the wonderful Pilgrim's Progress, but all his works are 



Digitized by 



Google 



READING THE BIBLE. 27 

full of suggestive and earnest thoughts, because in the 
long solitude of his cell in Bedford jail he had almost 
learned the Bible by Jieart. When the great Sir Wal- 
ter Scott was on his death-bed, he asked a friend to 
read to him. "What book shall I take?" said the 
friend. *' There is but one," was the instant reply. 

Try, instead of the somewhat mechanical way ot 
reading the Bible straight through from Genesis to 
Revelation, the way of reading it through on special 
subjects. Take prayer, for instance, and starting from 
the Sermon on the Mount, where the Lord so kindly 
taught his disciples to pray, find out how, like bell 
responding to bell, the silver tones echo through the 
Scriptures. In the morning of the world, Abraham 
and Moses pleaded with God as a man with his friend. 
It is worth considering, the close, intimate, and fearless 
manner in which the saints of old went to the heavenly 
Father. Go through the Old Testament, and every- 
where you will find that men who prayed, prayed con- 
fidently, and as if they expected an answer. Often the ^ 
answer came as directly as a mother's reply to her 
child who seeks a gift or asks a favor. Hezekiah was 
sick unto death, and he prayed, and the Lord added 
fifteen years to his life. Daniel knelt three times a day, 
with his face turned to the east, and the Lord granted 
him wisdom and knowledge, riches and honor. 

But to get the full sweetness, the subtly pervasive 
bouquet of the idea of prayer, one must go to the New 



Digitized by 



Google 



28 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

Testament. You will see Jesus often retiring from the 
little company of those who loved him to spend whole 
nights in communion with God. You will read the 
words of Paul, of Peter, and of John, all enjoining the 
duty and testifying to the privilege of prayer. To sum 
up in one sentence the teachings of the whole New Tes- 
tament on the theme : ** In everything by prayer and 
supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be 
made known unto God." 

Prayer is but a single topic. Love, faith, patience, 
experience, practical sense in dealing with the emer- 
gencies of daily life, all can be taken up in this way. 
The concerns of the spiritual life, the tenderness of 
Christ, the miracles, the prophecies, the songs of 
thanksgiving, the promises to those in trouble, and the 
sure, sweet revelations of God^s will concerning us in 
this world and the next, may be profitably studied in 
this manner. Or the lives of various great men and 
women may be read, for .the Bible is a collection of 
^ biographies, and, unlike other biographers, the sacred 
writers invariably relate the whole truth about their 
heroes and heroines. 

Literature is full of allusions to the Bible. On the 
lower ground of mere mental cultivation, no woman 
can afford to be ignorant of the Bible, for without it 
she cannot read intelligently any of the history or poe- 
try or fiction or philosophy of modem times. But be- 
yond and above this ground is the higher reason that 



Digitized by 



Google 



READING THE BIBLE. 29 

it is God*s word, and that Jesus said, "Search the 
Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, 
and they are they that testify of me." 

Have a stated time for your Bible reading, and let 
it be as early in the day as practicable. Too often we 
go to our Bibles when we are jaded, wearied, and worn. 
We are unfit for the least intellectual task, yet we go to 
the Book of books, and languidly or sleepily read some 
grand prophecy, or sweet psalm, or tender incident in 
the Master's life of love, and think we have fulfilled an 
obligation. 

Sometimes we are very careful about the outward 
form of our Bible, liking to have it handsomely bound, 
and of clear type and fine paper. It is well to have the 
best edition one's purse can buy, and if there is a mar- 
gin for luxuries anywhere, surely the taste may be 
gratified about the style of one's Bible. A fine copy, 
with marginal references, maps, text-book, and con- 
cordance, is a precious treasure, and will become dear- 
er as use makes it a part and parcel of the most sacred 
hours. But a copy of the Bible may be purchased for 
a merely nominal sum, and still be almost as valuable, 
if rightiy prized, as the more costly one. 

Do not treat the blessed book as if it were a bit of 
rare china or bric-d-brac, the ornament of the parlor 
only. It is not true veneration which thus behaves to- 
wards the word of God. It is on the daily path that 
we need daily guidance. In a strange country we must 



Digitized by 



Google 



30 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

consult the compass, and see where the needle points. 
From earth to heaven the road is beset with difficul- 
ties, but if we walk by God's light we shall walk in 
safety. 

The Bible has a very wonderful history. It will 
repay you to read it. You will see how, through dark 
and stormy periods, the manuscripts of inspiration have 
been preserved, hidden from foes, tucked away in con- 
vent libraries, copied out, word by word, by the patient 
labor of conscientious monks, and guarded as by the 
Lord's own hand through ages of tempestuous strife. 
You will see that we ought not to set a light value on 
what God has kept for us through fire and flood. 

A friend said to me one day that she was sometimes 
tormented by doubts which came into her mind unbid- 
den, and destroyed her inward peace. She said they 
made her wretched. If such an experience has ever 
been yours, believe that there is one remedy which 
never fails, one antidote which is effectual against the 
poison of doubt : read the Bible prayerfully. If the 
wrong thoughts intrude, read it the more earnestly. 
Try the plan of reading it aloud, so that the ear takes 
account as well as the eye of the passage under review. 
Man may not be able to assist you if you are in men- 
tal distress ; but the Father above can lift you out of 
every perplexity, and put a new song in your mouth. 



Digitized by 



Google 



COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 31 

CHAPTER IV. 
COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE, 

In choosing friends and companions among your 
own sex, you cannot be too careful, for our friendships 
color our thoughts and affect our lives more than we 
know. If we associate habitually with those who have 
a low tone, who estimate things by appearances rather 
than realities, who are ostentatious, insincere, or irreli- 
gious, we shall not escape without injury. Nobody 
touches pitch and remains pure. No greater misfor- 
tune can befall a young woman than at the critical pe- 
riod, when girlhood is approaching maturity, to form 
an intimate friendship with a worldly or cold-hearted 
woman. The bloom of youth is insensibly brushed 
from the soul, and the sweet freshness which should be 
given to God is lost and dissipated. 

If this be true of women, it is true in a deeper sense 
when the companionship is between women and men. 
A young girl gives much of herself to the youth whom 
she takes as her dearest friend for life, and she runs a 
great risk when she commits her happiness to the care 
of one who does not honor and love God, and who is 
not lofty in his morals, unstained in his integrity, and 
temperate in his conduct. 



Digitized by 



Google 



32 HOURS WITH GIRLS, 

It is natural that you should enjoy the admiration 
and be pleased with the company of the other sex. 
But do not be like some girls whom I have seen, who 
never enter with much enthusiasm into the pursuits of 
the hour if ladies only are present, but who are all 
a-flutter with smiles and animation if a gentleman be 
announced. Do not be like some, who have little 
time to spare for the society of their brothers, who do 
not care to sing or play for them, and who count the 
cost of every gracious word and act spent in their 
own homes, but who are enthusiastic, charming, and 
beautiful when they meet gentlemen in the festive cir- 
cle. 

Do not let yourselves drift into the habit of think- 
ing that every man who pays you a pleasant compli- 
ment or a polite attention is thinking of you as his 
future wife. And do not regard marriage as the only 
thing worth living for. 

A happy marriage is indeed the crown of a wom- 
an's life, but many women live in a large, noble, and 
useful way, blessing all around them, and yet are never 
married. The terni old maid signifies an ideal which 
is not lovely. One thinks of a cross, pinched, disap- 
pointed, narrow, angular woman, devoted to herself, 
loving her pet cat or dog, and finding fault with all the 
world, when one hears the opprobrious term applied. 
In point of fact, an old maid is often the favorite of the 
family. She is the kind aunt to whom the little ones 



Digitized by 



Google 



COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 33 

carry their stories of trouble. It is she who has lei- 
sure to listen to the slow and perhaps rambling talk of 
old age. She goes to the chamber of sickness, with 
her light foot, her cool hand, her steady brain, and her 
strong heart. . She teaches the orphans and the poor. 
She gives abundantiy of her money if she has it, of her 
thought and time if she has not money, and helps for- 
ward good enterprises, aids the church, and serves the 
present age. 

Now that you think of it, nobody ever calls the 
happy-faced, sweet- voiced, generous single woman an 
old maid, nor is the epithet bestowed upon her if she 
is a business woman, at the head of a commercial 
house, or the superintendent of a school. Who ever 
dreamed of speaking of Mary Lyon as an old maid ? 
Who would thus designate Mary L. Booth, the digni- 
fied, thoughtful, scholarly woman who adorns one of 
the ablest editorial chairs in New York ? Who thus 
thinks of Miss Britton, whose tender tones and plead- 
ing eloquence have done so much to arouse interest in 
zenana work in India? Who would dare mention 
Miss Frances E. Willard and '* old maid" in the same 
breath ? It is not necessary to multiply illustrations. 
Your own observation will confirm what I say, when 
I bid you remember that it is not the being married, 
or the remaining single, which insures womanly devel- 
opment in goodness, and womanly contentment in the 
home, but the doing one's duty, as unto the Lord, in 

H<«irt with Gi.lrt. 9 

Digitized by VnOOglC 



34 HOURS WITH GIRLS, 

whatever station and circumstances the Lord assigns 
to the individual. 

Few women have been more honored in authorship, 
and more fortunate in private and social relations, than 
Miss Catharine M. Sedgwick, whose books were the 
delight of your mothers and grandmothers. To her, 
on one occasion, a brother wrote as follows : " The sin- 
cere, tried, devoted affection of all the older members 
of the family, the tender and filial reverence and at- 
tachment of the younger, the admiration and respect 
of a large circle of friends, serve to bind you to that 
spot, and confine you within that circle, where all 
these blessings are enjoyed." 

I am aware, as I write in this way, that many of my 
readers have already thought that it is pleasanter and 
more satisfactory to be indispensable to some one 
heart, than to be liked and admired by many, yet 
essential to none. And you are right. Wedded life, 
founded on mutual esteem and reciprocal love, is the 
best life for our sex. Let no smaller consideration 
enter into your calculation. Where love does not exist, 
there is not sufficient ground for marriage. There 
should never be the union of hands without the union 
of hearts. If you are poor in all else, you may still be 
rich in self-respect. Listen to none who advise you to 
entertain the suit of the man who does not commend 
himself to your instinctive regard. He may be rich, 
influential, and talented, but unless you can love him 



Digitized by 



Google 



COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE, 35 

truly and entirely, you will do him a wrong should you 
become his wife. 

On the other hand, do not listen to the pleadings 
even of your own heart, if they whisper in behalf of 
one who leads an impure life. The utmost you can do 
for such a man, is to pray for him. If he be a gambler, 
a drunkard, or a libertine, do not dream the idle 
dream that your love and companionship will be 
sufficient to reform him. Only true repentance and 
the grace of the Lord Jesus will do that. You have a • 
right to ask as utter a surrender of himself to you, as 
you give to him, in the covenant of marriage between 
yourself and your husband. As human nature is im- 
perfect and sinful, there will always be room in ^very 
home for the exercise of forbearance on both sides, but 
there can be no good foundation for happiness where 
there cannot be entire confidence. You may safely 
determine to trust no man, however charming in man- 
ner and fine in appearance, who is a moderate drinker. 
Trust no man who is not a good son and brother. 
Trust no man who sneers at religion and scoffs at the Bible. 

Do not be too certain of your own ability to judge 
of the man who comes to woo you. Mothers should 
be their daughters' closest and most confidential 
friends.. They have the experience and the practical 
judgment which you lack. A young girl should listen 
with deference to the advice of her parents, and feel 
that they who have cherished her from her cradle, have 



Digitized by 



Google 



36 fiOURS WITH GIRLS. 

a right to offer her counsel at the time when she is 
about to take the most important step in life. 

Romantic girls, with high-flown ideas, derived prin- 
cipally from sentimental novels, sometimes marry very 
foolishly. Once in a while the papers give us the un- 
veiling of some sad family history, and we read, under 
their flaming head-lines, of Nellie, or Margery, or 
Sadie, the petted child of wealth, who has eloped with 
her father's gardener or coachman. The probabilities 
are that the poor girl, unfitted by the whole background 
of her life to be the sharer of a poor man's lot, es- 
pecially unfitted to cope with hardships and privations, 
unused to coarse ways and rude speech, has made for 
her head a pillow of thorns. Whenever I hear of a 
silly girl who escapes to her lover from a boarding- 
school, or cHmbs over the back fence to meet him, I 
am convinced that there is a painful lack of refinement 
as well as of common sense in her character. 

When the day comes for your marriage, be married" 
honorably in the open day, from your father's house. 
If there are objections on the part of your parents to 
the lover you have chosen, and if the objections seem 
to you unreasonable, then wait, for one, two, three, or 
five years, if need be, trusting to time and patience to 
overcome their opposition. True love, on both sides, 
can aflbrd in most cases to wait till affectionate parents 
are willing to consent to its wishes. 

Your waiting on your parents' will is, however, a 



Digitized by 



Google 



COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 37 

very different thing from your obeying them in uniting 
yourself to a man whom your heart has not elected as 
its mate. A young woman should not be robbed of 
her own privilege of declining, if she is not won by the 
man who woos her. 

As a rule, very long engagements are to be dreaded. 
They often result unhappily. The bright years which 
should be spent in learning to love each other better, 
are worse than lost, because the two grow constantly 
apart. A few months are enough for courtship when 
that is based, as it always should be, on a sufficient 
mutual acquaintance. 

During the golden time, when the lover is all devo- 
tion, and the eyes of each are blind to the faults and 
foibles of the other, there should be on the part of the 
maiden a delicate and modest reserve, never to be over- 
stepped. Do not suffer too great a familiarity, and do 
not impulsively accept caresses, which may be sweet 
and innocent, indeed, but which are indiscreet. We 
do not think that American girls need the vigilant care 
which is regarded ats obligatory in Europe. Their 
own purity, their self-respect, and the good training 
their mothers have given them, should be their triple 
safeguard. But youth is impetuous, passion and 
temptation at times walk hand-in-hand, and the re- 
sponsibility lies rather upon you, dear girls, than upon 
your lovers. Your own sense of what is fit and right 
should be to you as an invisible armor of prooC 



Digitized by 



Google 



38 HOURS WITH GIRLS, 

How can two walk together unless they be agreed ? 
They who are one in Christ are most entirely one. 
The union that is hallowed by prayer, cemented by 
trust in God, and fed by the constant service and min- 
istries of consecrated affection, will be indeed blessed 
from above. Such a husband and wife may say, in 
the sweet words of Mrs. Lucy W. Fleming: 

"^We do not know, we cannot tell 

What scenes may flit across lifers sky ; 
But yet, whate'er the future holds. 
What task each hidden day unfolds, 
We 11 walk together, you and I. 

" We do not know, we cannot tell 
What cup of joy may mantle high, 
God giveth often blessed hours, 
And if he crown our way with flowers, 
We '11 share together, you and I. 

" We do not know, ah ! who can tell ? 

What blooming hopes may fade and die ; 
But in life's every day of care. 
The cross that falleth to our share 

We '11 bear together, you and I. 

" God only knows, his hand will shape 
All that is hidden from the eye. 
Still may our footsteps heavenward bend, 
With trusting hearts, until the end ; 
We '11 walk together, you and I." 



Digitized by 



Google 



CHAPTER V. 
D/^ESS, 

A YOUNG lady needs what may be called her busi- 
ness dress, her every-day, leisure dress, and her best 
dress. Of each of these she may possess a number, 
though I know many girls who feel that their wardrobe 
is very comfortably furnished if they have one good 
suit of each of these descriptions, all ready to be worn 
as occasion requires. 

The business dress is the one to wear to school, if 
you go there daily either as teacher or pupil ; to wear 
to the store, if you have a position as saleswoman ; in 
general terms, to assume when you have errands out 
of doors. It should be neat, of as good material as 
your purse can buy (Shakespeare is high authority 
here), made without superfluous trimming, and always 
in repair. Girls who go about in rags and tags, with 
buttons off, and strings loose, and great rips in sleeves 
and skirts, convict themselves of mental carelessness, 
and lack a nice perception of the fitness of things. 

I once knew a girl named MoUie, who was very 
elegantly attired on Sundays, and dressed in purple 
and fine linen when she attended a party, but at home, 
or on her way to market, on ordinary occasions, shr 



Digitized by 



Google 



40 nhl/RS WITH GIRLS. 

might have been taken for a very slatternly housemaid. 
Shoes worn down at the heel and lacking buttons, a 
tawdry bonnet set upon unkempt hair, and a frayed- 
out, spotted, greasy silk dress, which was in mourning 
for its better days, made up her usual garb, when sim- 
ply going to perform the household errands. In the 
house itself, if an unexpected ring came to the door, 
Mollie had to fly, for she was never presentable. 

A rapid process of disenchantment went on in my 
mind the first time I surprised the young lady in her 
parlor, her loose and tattered morning gown without 
belt or collar, her feet in worn and wretched -looking 
slippers, her hands and face, if you will believe me, 
actually sticky with molasses candy, and her eyes bent 
in absorbed interest on the pages of a very shallow 
novel. She had called upon me in state, exquisite, 
dainty, and radiant, and I could scarcely realfze that I 
was awake when a servant ushered me in to meet this 
repulsive specimen of young ladyhood. 

Do not, like poor Mollie, think that it matters littie 
how you dress at home. It matters greatly. Sidney 
Smith said that a lady's whole setdement in life might, 
humanly speaking, turn upon the color of a bow or 
the shape of a bonnet. Mrs. John Hancock, the pretty 
Dorothy Quincy of Colonial days, said pithily that she 
could never forgive a girl who did not dress to please, 
nor pardon one who seemed pleased with her dress. 

Dress should be unobtrusive, and should suit the 



Digitized by 



Google 



DJ^ESS. 41 

wearer. Your mother's dress should, all things consid- 
ered, be more elegant, more costly, and more elabo- 
rately made than your own. Simplicity becomes 
youth, and modesty no less. 

For sweeping, dusting, baking, and housework of 
every kind, a calico gown, short enough to avoid con- 
tact with, the floor, and free from frills and furbelows, 
is the most suitable dress you can wear. Some ladies 
do their housework in old silk or cashmere dresses 
which have seen service in the parlor, and are too 
much worn for use there longer. The custom cannot 
be approved, for washable fabrics are certainly neater 
for this special purpose. For out-door business use, 
some one of the many serviceable worsted fabrics 
which are no^ provided is to be preferred to calico. 
Let the littie finishing touches, the cuffs, the collars, 
the ties, be immaculate. No real lady will be seen in 
a soiled collar, or will wear a ragged one, so long as 
soap, water, and starch, and needles and thread, are 
within her reach. 

Every young woman requires a thick jacket for cold 
weather and a thin one for warmer days, a blanket- 
shawl, a waterproof cloak, and two pairs of stout shoes, 
with a pair of rubbers. A. felt or straw bonnet or hat, 
plainly trimmed, and a dark veil for windy days, com- 
plete one's attire for the street. 

You may think it costs a great deal of money to 
procure so many wraps. Well, the money some peo- 

Houn with Girls. 



Digitized by 



Google 



42 HOURS WITH GIRLS, 

pie waste on perishable ruffles and ribbons, on choco- 
late caramels and ten-cent story-books, would easily 
suffice to clothe them as comfortably and sensibly and 
safely as every lady should be clothed. 

I often see young girls behind counters for whom 
my heart aches. The attempts at fine dressing dis- 
played in their costumes, the efforts to imitate in cheap 
materials the splendor of rich women tvho come to do 
their shopping in velvets and satins, are pitiful. It is 
in good taste for the wealthy, remembering the impres- 
sion they make on their poorer sisters, to refrain from 
trailing their best garments on the floors of city stores. 
Business dresses, for the lofty and the lowly alike, 
should be inconspicuous. When Princess Louise goes 
to walk in Ottawa, her street suit is stout, dark, and 
serviceable; and our President's wife, Mrs. Hayes, has 
set a good example to the whole country in her con- 
tinual quiet protest against vulgar display. 

Dress for special times should be more ornamental 
and of costlier material than on common occasions. 
But do not deprive yourself of the opportunity to meet 
agreeable people, to see fine pictures, to hear sweet 
music, and to obtain the culture which is only to be 
found by mingling in society, because you must wear 
one dress repeatedly. Probably nobody will give a 
second thought to your costume ; and if it be sufficient- 
ly in style not to challenge attention, if it fit you nicely, 
and you wear it with a smiling, happy face, it will an- 



Digitized by 



Google 



D/^ESS, 43 

swer every requirement. A good black or dark-col- 
ored silk, or, if that be too costly, a good black cash- 
mere, neatly made, with lace at your neck and wrists, 
is dress enough for almost any occasion to which a 
young girl is likely to be invited. 

The habit of dressing in the afternoon, when no 
visitors are looked for, and only father and the boys 
will see the extra touches, is one which you should 
acquire. Always, when the day's work is put by and 
the afternoon's leisure has arrived, make a fresh toilet. 
The cool water on face and hands, the nicely-combed 
hair, and the rest and refreshment the litde change 
brings, are worth all the trouble they cost. Sometimes, 
if you are in a depressed mood, and the day is dark 
and rainy, it will cheer you and elevate your spirits if 
you will put on a bright ribbon and a favorite dress, 
and thus adopt the raiment of gayety, though the 
state of your mind may not entirely correspond with 
it. 

Reading lately a very interesting description of life 
in Canton, by an English lady who spent some months 
there, I was struck by the contrasts between the dress 
of ladies in the Celestial Empire and our own. With 
the poor litde deformed feet of the Chinese ladies, pic- 
tures have doubtless made you familiar. No such ex- 
treme of torture, of course, could be tolerated by us ; 
but do we not foolishly compress our feet into shoes 
too narrow and too short, with pointed heels which 



Digitized by 



Google 



44 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

destroy all grace ? and are we not unwise in thus impe- 
ding our freedom of movement and ruining the beauty 
of the foot, which was given us for use and comfort, 
and not for mere show ? 

White is the recognized deep mourning in China, 
and it must be of cotton, and austerely plain. Blue is 
likewise worn by those in sorrow, answering to our 
lighter mourning of lilac and gray. All jewelry and 
ornament are prohibited to those in bereavement 

I would like to use my influence with you who are 
growing up, against the wearing of the gloomy black 
robes and the unwholesome, swathing crape in which 
we Christians envelop ourselves when God has sent 
his messenger to our beloved ones and called them 
home. Unlike the heathens in the Flowery Land, the 
most sombre and the saddest hues symbolize our feel- 
ings when we weep for our dead. Yet if we can be 
sure that they are only gone a little sooner to rest in 
the very presence of the Master, that they are for ever 
free from sorrow and pain and trouble, we shall see 
that our grief should be mingled with gladness. We 
ought not to write ourselves desolate, but rather to 
look with hopeful eyes to the swiftly -coming day when 
we, too, shall receive an arrow sharpened with love, let 
in sweetly, and ascend unto Him who "bought us with 
his precious blood. 

Young girls will of course defer to the wishes of 
their parents in the clothing they wear in seasons of 



Digitized by 



Google 



. DRESS, 45 

affliction, and at all times. Still, many of you have 
much liberty of choice, and to all there will gradually 
arrive a period when you will make decisions of your 
own, and regulate your own attire. Do not, then, be- 
come the slaves of fashion. If you feel that you arc 
more contented in adopting a mourning garb when 
you lose dear friends, let it not be ostentatious in its 
costliness, if only for the sake of the innumerable poor 
who will spend their^ last penny, and perhaps incur 
debts, in their emulation of you. Do not endanger 
your eyesight by going about shrouded from head to 
foot in thick veils impervious to light and air. 

The best way to remember our dead is to carry for- 
ward the labors of love they began,, to be thankful for 
the sweetness of the years when they were here, and 
for their sakes to be gentler, kinder, more tender and 
more patient with the living who tarry with us still. 
It is well to embellish the grave, and to lay fresh flow- 
ers above the sleeping-place of our darlings, but it is 
better to make the days bright and sunny for the litde 
children, for the middle-aged, and the old, who still 
claim our friendly offices. 

Whatever dress you wear in a sick-chamber — and 
more or less most of us are called upon to care for the 
sick — in our homes, let it be one that will not rustle. 
No stiff silk, no creaking shoe, no rough, obtrusive 
garment should be worn by the nurse. Soft woollen 
or flannel dresses and noiseless slippers are appropri- 



Digitized by 



Google 



46 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

ate there, for the good nurse is quiet, without seeming 
to try to be so. 

If you ever take upon you the duty of visiting 
among the poor, do not make the mistake which some 
do of going in the oldest and dingiest things you can 
find. Wear nice clothing. The people you visit will 
aippreciate the compliment you pay them. In teaching 
mission scholars, while your dress should be simple, 
see that it is neat and attractive. 

A lady who had taught in mission schools in sev- 
eral great cities, among others, San Francisco, Chicago, 
and New York, told me that she invariably wore the 
prettiest neck-ribbon she could when she went among 
her worst classes. She said, " There is more than the 
unthinking imagine in presenting a winning appear- 
ance to these girls who have so little in their lives to 
make them happy. It helps to educate them." 

A love of dress has been the ruin of many a poor 
woman who, to gratify it, has bartered her peace and 
her honor. It is the duty of all good women to ele- 
vate the standard of thought on this subject. We must, 
by neither precept nor example, lift our clothing from 
its subordinate place of convenience and comfortable- 
ness into the place of supreme importance. We must 
not devote too much time to the stitching, seaming, 
and embroidering of garments which are soon to per- 
ish and pass away. ** Is not the life more than meat, 
and the body than raiment ?" 



Digitized by 



Google 



DRESS, 47 

Above all, our dress must conform to our means. 
To owe money for dresses which we are wearing, to be 
in debt to dressmakers and milliners, to defraud poor 
and needy sewing- women of their well-earned wages, 
is to sink beneath the contempt of all honest persons. 

Much evil is wrought by want of thought ; and of 
all want of thought, that seems to me most cruel and 
least excusable which keeps back well-earned money 
from those who have toiled to receive it. A day's, a 
week's waiting, may seriously incommode the seam- 
stress who saves her rent up dollar by dollar. Far 
better any self-denial and any doing without than the 
wilful acceptance of debt. Never buy what you cannot 
pay for on the spot, if you would enjoy daily and 
nighdy ease of mind. 



Digitized by 



Google 



43 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

CHAPTER VI. 

ON PAYING YOUR WAY, 

One of the finest qualities which a gentlewoman 
can possess is an honestly independent spirit. The 
pretty, poetical conceit of the vine pleases us when we 
hear it applied to womanhood, because we like to think 
of woman as soft and tender and clinging. Yet if such 
be a woman's only or even chief attributes, her charms 
will grow monotonous. The prettiest, the sweetest, the 
most delicately refined of you all will be happier and 
more fondly loved if you can walk on your own feet, 
than if you go through life making a crutch of the 
most convenient arm. 

None of us can afford to be entirely independent of 
others. Our kindred and friends, our daily associates, 
even the chance companions of a visit or a journey, 
have interests which are twisted and woven into the 
very threads of our being. That would be a meagre, 
starved, and unproductive life, which neither took nor 
gave, receiving no stores from others' wealth, and re- 
turning no overflow of gratitude and helpfulness. 

But the sort of woman who sets out to be the cling- 
ing dependant, intent on being taken care of, fed of the 
finest of the wheat, clothed in silken attire, helped over 



Digitized by 



Google 



ON PA YING YOUR WA K 49 

all the rough places, and generally preferred because 
of her inefficiency and selfishness, is a parasite and a 
poison-vine. God pity the homes wherein such women 
dwell. 

I know a number of women whose lives seem, to 
themselves and their friends, to be failures. Some, fet- 
tered by fretful invalidism, spend hours of every week 
stretched upon lounges, from which the resolute en- 
deavor tp seek health by exercise in fresh air and sun- 
light would probably deliver them. Others, having no 
means of.their own, deliberately say, like the unfaithful 
steward in the parable, "I cannot dig; to beg I am 
ashamed." They prefer to remain members of families 
which would be happier and more peaceable without 
them. One or two have fettered the hands of kind and 
unselfish brothers, preventing them from marrying be- 
cause they felt that they must keep for their sisters the 
luxury and the ease to which they had been accus- 
tomed. 

I hope the girls who are now growing up to take the 
places of those who are gradually acknowledging the 
on-creeping power of time, will be above such selfish- 
ness as this. There is no surer way of providing for 
contentment and honor in middle-age than in youth to 
acquire some art, or study for some profession, or learn 
some trade, which shall be in request in the world*s 
market. Do not feel that there is anything humiliating 
in performing good work for good wages. The laborer 

llimis witli (li Is. 4 



Digitized by 



Google 



so HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

is worthy of his hire, and the skilled laborer can usually 
command his price. 

Very often it is a girl's, plain duty to remain at 
home, at leisure, gently filling in the little spaces as 
only a dear daughter can, lifting the weight of care 
from her mother, slipping in a soft word or a smile 
where it is like oil on the troubled waters of a child's 
transient naughtiness, reading to her grandmother, 
whose eyes begin to grow dim, writing letters for 
father, and beautifying the house with the cunning 
work of her brush or her needle. She who . rebels at 
this sort of existence as too humdritm, too barren and 
too narrow, may be simply a sentimental egotist whose 
principal object in life is herself. A young girl whose 
father and mother are generous and affectionate, and 
who only ask of her, in return for all they do, her love 
and cheery presence, ought to think deeply and ear- 
nestly before determining to set out in life for herself, as 
it is right and natural that her brother should. The 
safe shelter of her childhood's home is the pleasantest 
and the fairest environment for her while she is still 
young, and her Hfe, like an unread book, is all be- 
fore her. 

There are many girls, however, who must at an 
early age add something to the home income; and 
there are many who will find it necessary always to 
take care of themselves. The inquiry arises, and is 
pertinent to such, What can you do ? 



Digitized by 



Google 



ON PAYING YOUR WAY, 51 

What have you learned, so thoroughly and so 
well, that you can practise it, and receive adequate 
renumeration in return? Are you, for instance, a 
thoroughly competent housekeeper ? Are you a good 
cook? Every woman ought to learn cooking, and 
ought to consider it as essential a part of her education 
as reading and writing. It is far too commonly aban- 
doned to ignorant and stupid servants, and the result 
is that we are pale, nervous, and dyspeptic, as a nation, 
while the land teems with plenty, the harvests are 
abundant, and the markets are stocked with the choi- 
cest fare. Learn to cook, whatever else you fail to 
learn. Learn, too, to wash, to iron, to do fine fluting, 
to sew, to cut out, to paint pictures, to draw designs, 
in short, to use your two hands as tools, as instru- 
ments, and as servants to attend on the orders of your 
brain. 

If you have had exceptional advantages for secu- 
ring a good education, have you made the best of 
them? Have you mastered any exact science?. Do 
you so understand any language, other than your own, 
that you can teach it, read it, or translate with facility. 
Have you spent years on music, and can you play, at 
sight, the-beautiful compositions which carry the listen- 
ers along their deep currents, as voyagers are borne 
on the tides of grand rivers? Could you become 
the organist of a church, or has your voice been so 
trained that it could lead the songs of a congregation ? 



Digitized by 



Google 



52 HOURS WITH GHiLS. 

If there is no one thing for which you are fitted, I 
pray you, lose no more time, but begin to-day to 
study conscientiously and faithfully something which 
will enable you to earn your own support, if the day 
shall come when you have to do so. 

In a lovely little cottage, embowered among roses 
and hidden behind sheltering elms and maples, I last 
summer made the acquaintance of a family whom I 
hold in high esteem. There was a bright young daugh- 
ter, graceful, dignified and winsome, who wanted to 
find some fitting work away from home. She felt that 
she was not really needed there, and that she did not 
wish to burden her parents, but rather to assist them. 
She was undecided first what to do. Not long ago, 
she came to see me, a^d I found that she had solved 
her problem by entering a training school for nurses, 
where in a two years* course she would learn how 
to take intelligent care of the sick, graduating from the 
school with a diploma which would be a testimonial of 
her competence. Often, as I see young girls who go 
about their beautiful homes morbid, dissatisfied, and 
wearing the air of martyrs, I think of this brave little 
lady, and conclude that there would be less imagined 
unhappiness among young women, if there were more 
courage, more self-abnegation, and more resolute 
common sense in the average young womanly char- 
acter. 

If you are rich and well- to-do, you have a certain 



Digitized by 



Google 



ON PAYING YOUR WAY. 53 

advantage over those who are poor. They must do 
what they can. You may do what you will. A poor 
girl cannot look around her and say, "There is this 
work which invites me, and which I should enjoy. I 
will prepare myself to enter upon it." She must do 
whatever comes first to hand, whether or not it be 
agreeable, and accept what money she can get. On 
the other hand, the young woman who is now comfor- 
tably established may take her time, and arm herself 
against the day of necessity by acquiring some useful 
art or accomplishment. 

What a pity it is to live in a world where so many 
hearts are aching, in which so many burdens must be 
borne, and in which there is always so much for willing 
hands to do, and to live churlishly, meanly, and selfish- 
ly. What a pity to lose the sweet opportunities of 
blessing others which are in every day, if only we have 
eyes to look for them. What a pity to cultivate a cyni- 
cal satirical disposition. Every little while I hear such 
a comment as this, made upon somebody who alienates 
instead of pleasing people : ** There is that disagreea- 
ble Miss , let us get out of her way. She is so sharp 

and critical, she will be sure to find fault with us." It 
is not well to harden, to take the narrowest view of 
things, to crystallize too early. The cheery, buoyant, 
bright, glad, suggestive girls, who bring the morning 
and the sunshine into the room, who carry with them 
the tonic and the cordial of a brisk breeze, are the 



Digitized by 



Google 



54 HOURS WITH GIRLS, 

girls who have their hearts and hands full, and who 
know that they are of use. They have found their 
place, and are occupying it. 

Pay your way. Pay it in kindness, in courtesies, 
in pleasant chat, and by contributing to the enjoyment 
of others. Do not be selfish. Do not plume yourself 
on some pitiful bit of affectation which you are chris- 
tening diffidence or modesty. Do not stand wishing 
for some grand opportunity, while a thousand little 
ones glide by unimproved. I never hear people saying 
how much they would do for the poor and the friend- 
less, if they were rich, influential, gifted, or at leisure, 
without a fear that they are self-deceived. The meas- 
ure of what one would do if one could, is thfe measure 
of what one is doing now. 

It is no small thing to be the joy of the domestic 
circle, the one whose soft touch or gentle word averts 
disturbance, heals wounds, dispels estrangement, con- 
ciliates the offended, harmonizes the uncongenial, and 
makes peace to be the household atmosphere. It is 
no small gift to possess the happy tact which makes 
people pleased with themselves, and urges them to do 
and be their best. The young girl who is gifted with 
this grace of touch, this swiftness of sympathy, this 
captivating self-forgetfulness, may not have a fair face, 
nor a trim figure, but she will be dowered with a charm 
more affluent than either, and there will be no question 
about her paying her way. 



Digitized by 



Google 



ON PAYING YOUR WAY, 55 

This particular kind of paying the way may be 
very soothing to some persons who, naturally of a stur- 
dy and independent nature, are in the providence of 
God placed where they must be, for a while, deper - 
dent. Under such circumstances, is it right to be 
morbid, morose, and unthankful, making everybody 
wretched on one's account? There are times and 
places in life where it is as clearly one's duty to 
depend, as in other cases to be independent. If God 
puts you where ypu cannot possibly help yourself, or 
if you have done everything you possibly can to that 
end, and in vain, then accept the help he sends, and 
do not fret ; help yourself with both hands if you can, 
with one hand if only one is free, but if both are folded 
or fettered, find out what the poet means by his noble 
line, "They also serve, who only stand and wait." 
^ Do not fret. In the Sermon on the Mount our Lord 
tells us, over and over, that we must take no anxious 
thought concerning the morrow. 

There are some quite commonplace bits of advice 
about paying one's way, which you should not over- 
look. The honest person keeps out of debt, and is 
prompt in returning small obligations, even to postage 
stamps, or the odd cent in change. She will not pur- 
chase the bonnet or the feather that she cannot afford, 
simply because it is in style and her friend has one 
she admires. She is ashamed of no frugality, so that 
she preserves her own self-respect. She abhors bor- 



Digitized by 



Google 



56 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

rowed finery, and wears her own gloves and shoes, not 
her obliging mother's or sister's. She is considerate in 
paying all work-people, not the lowest amount they 
will consent to take, but the highest she can afford to 
give, in accordance with the service rendered. She is 
just, generous, and responsible in her intercourse with, 
others. 



Digitized by 



Google 



PEN, INK, AND PAPER. 57 



CHAPTER VII. 
PEN, INK, AND PAPER. 

More girls than the uninitiated dream of are pos- 
sessed of literary aspirations, and entertain hopes of 
entering upon the path of authorship. We are a nation 
of readers, and the number of our writers is legion. 
The mails are burdened and the newspaper offices are 
besieged by bundles of manuscript, the supply called 
forth by a never-ceasing demand. To a well-taught 
young lady, on whom nature has bestowed a vocabu- 
lary, who has had access to books and to intelligent 
society, whose fancy is lively, on whom rests the happy 
faculty of idealization, it seems the obvious thing to 
write. Conscious of talents, shall she hide them in the 
folded napkin of silence? Sensible that she carries 
about with her fire and flame that ought to shine like 
beacons, shall she screen them under the bushel of 
obscurity ? 

She has had her little triumphs. She has already 
sent to this or that village paper her daintily-copied 
rhymes, signed Stella or Rosebud, and they have been . 
duly printed, with admiring comments from the editor's 
pen. Her friends too, rejoice to hear everything which 



iI<m;-8 wltli Oi.la. 



Digitized by 



Google 



58 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

she writes, and she has not learned to feel distrust of 
their appreciation. Yet, poor child ! the indiscriminate 
praise of sincerely sympathetic criticism has been the 
seed-corn of keen pain and bitter disappointment in 
many a young heart's experience. 

To people who have never tried to write anything 
more pretentious than letters of business or friendship, 
and those, perhaps, seldom, it is always surprising that 
others can write fluently upon selected themes. Many 
bright talkers are hampered by the pen, and they envy 
those who use it with ease. There are still many neigh- 
borhoods where a hint that you are a poetess insures 
you an extra lump of sugar in your tea, and imparts a 
delicious flavor of compliment to the half-hesitating 
request you receive for a stanza in Jennie's autograph 
album. 

Not for fame only, that shining will-o'-the-wisp 
which allures the ardent soul of the youthful student, 
but for money many girls desire to write. This is a 
praiseworthy motive, and no matter what the senti- 
mental may say about it, some excellent literary work 
is done with the object of earning a livelihood, and 
would never have been done had the worker been born 
to fortune. Inspiration is essential to the most delicate 
efflorescence of genius; but Harriet Martineau and 
Charles Dickens each testified that regularity and in- 
dustry were, in the long run, as serviceable. Many a 
bright little article and many a sweet little song had its 



Digitized by 



Google 



PEN, h\K, AND PAPER, 59 

primary inspiration, alas, in the writer's need of a pair 
of shoes, in the fact that the scoop scraped the bottom 
of the flour-barrel. 

Do not allow yourself, dear youthful aspirant, to 
think that golden gains are to be won by the multitude 
in this well-tilled and crowded field. I know of no life 
so full of drudgery, no life so little and so slowly remu- 
nerative, and no life so full of strife and competition, as 
that of women engaged in literature and dependent on 
occasional contributions to the columns of papers and 
magazines. The exceptional few who have salaried 
positions, or who are adepts in some one line, very 
possibly a mechanical one, may earn enough to sup- 
port them modestly. They nearly always find it neces- 
sary to supplement their salaries by additional work if 
they have, as many women do, dear relatives looking 
to them for assistance. Once in a great while a suc- 
cessful venture in novel-writing brings fame and for- • 
tune to die happy haven whence it was launched. 

But it is a blessed thing for youth that it believes in 
itself, and is undaunted when it hears of the failures of 
others. Each novice, as she drops her first tremulous 
notes, fancies that she shall one day wear the singing- 
robes of Mrs. Browning or Mrs. Hemans. 

" Somewhere there is something sweet, 
And some time I shall know. 
There is a land close by, 
A land in reach of my arm ; 



Digitized by 



Google 



6o HOURS WITH GIRLS, 

It is mine from shore to sea. 

There the nightingales do fly ; 
There the flush of the rose is warm. 

I shall take it by-and-by." 

This is the unspoken conviction of the young girl as 
she writes her first story and sends it afar off into the 
great unknown sea where sail so many ships. All 
alone she slips out of the house, drops her precious 
parcel into the letter-box, says nothing about it at 
home, keeps it to herself, a sacred and tender my.stery. 
And then she watches and waits, day by day listening 
for the postman's rap, hoping for acceptance, chokingly- 
disappointed and curiously ashamed if he hand in, prob- 
ably before the eyes of the assembled family, the big 
yellow envelope, with its bulky contents. That curt 
" Returned with thanks" of the editor, how it cuts its 
way through wounded vanity, and sometimes through 
real merit, like a sharp, pitiless knife. 

I confess to a very great tenderness for these sheets 
of paper covered with the chirography of girlhood. 
They were written afternoons, when the work was 
done, in little white-draped rooms, with leaf-shadows 
dancing on the floor, and robin preludes blending with 
the melody of the pure thoughts. How crude they 
are, how little original, how transparently they reveal 
the books the writer has been reading, and how inno- 
cently they echo the style of her favorite poet. How 
small their knowledge of real life, and how unsparing 



Digitized by 



Google 



PEN, INK, AND PAPER. 6i 

their judgment of what they do not understand. Veiy 
often they possess genuine merit, and there is in them 
the promise of good work ; but before that can be ac- 
complished, there must be patient acceptance of hope 
deferred, itself a kindly discipline, earnest study of the 
best models, and laborious pruning and condensing. 
Easy reading has not always been easy writing, and 
too great spontaneity often induces a fatal facility. 

Editors are, as a rule, very amiable and long-suf- 
fering beings. They are fenced in by limitations, which 
are conveniently described by the term available. The 
consideration is with them a mercantile one merely, 
and they cannot expend sentiment in accepting or de- 
clining what is offered for their columns. If they do 
not want your sugar, your salt, your potatoes, they say 
so, and you are at liberty to offer them elsewhere. 
When you take your wares to them, remember that 
they are only wares. You should not embarrass them 
by saying that you are in poverty. Newspapers and 
publishing houses are not charitable institutions, con- 
trived to aid genius in distress. They cannot help it, 
and it is not their business, though you may have 
changed your last dollar to buy the stamps for your 
letter, or to pay the car-fare to their office. Your wom- 
anly desire to assist your parents, or to educate your 
brother, or to procure for yourself a library, cannot be 
allowed to weigh with them in their judgment of your 
manuscript. 



Digitized by 



Google 



62 HOURS WITH GIRLS, 

Nor can y.ou claim aay special deference by right 
of your sex. " Is there no place here for a lady to sit 
down ?" indignantiy asked a young woman who had 
entered the office- of a New York daily paper at the 
most hurried hour of the day. Why should there have 
been, pray ? Ladies often behave as though they ex- 
pected to be treated with chivalrous courtesy because 
they have undertaken an artistic or literary career. 
The fact is, that they have no right to any special re- 
gard based on the notion that they are women. They 
ought to divest themselves of the thought that they are 
the objects in any way of the admiration or the instinc- 
tive gallantry of gentlemen when they compete with 
them in any legitimate work. A fair field and no favor 
is what they should ask ; and the higher education now 
open to women should make them too independent to 
claim anything by right of their fragility,, their grace, 
or their pretty looks. 

Having said this, it is right to observe that the busy 
printing-presses of the age are for ever crying, " Give, 
give." Of making many books there is no end. You, 
as well as others, may find your vocation in helping to 
make them. Millions of words are wanted by the littie 
types, and a word fitly spoken is always like an apple 
of gold in a picture of silver. If you have anything to 
say, say it as brightly, as forcibly, and as briefly as you 
can, and send it, with your address plainly written, and 
the stamps for its return, to the editor of your choice. 



Digitized by 



Google 



PEN, INK, AND PAPER. 63 

If he return it, and your faith fail not, buy more stamps, 
and send it elsewhere. But do not think there is any- 
thing personal in the rejection which is almost certain 
to overtake your first venture. Pluck, practice, and 
persistence, are the three Ps of which every writer, 
young or old, needs plenty. Do not forget that what 
you have prepared, in the fragments of your time, and 
with little skill, must enter into competition, not with 
its own kind only, but with the work of many trained 
hands. Literature is an exacting mistress, and a long 
apprenticeship must be served to her, as to other arts 
and professions. Untold mischief has been done by 
some popular novels, in which beautiful heroines, with 
hair trailing as they walk, achieve wealth and distinc- 
tion before they are twenty. Experience and perseve- 
rance count for more than dimples and complexion in 
the writing of books. 

If you do decide to use pen, ink, and paper for the 
great hungry public, attend to several humble adjuncts. 
Use good paper, smooth and white, and cut into sheets 
about the size of commercial note. Write legibly. 
Spell and punctuate correctly. Use ink of a decided 
color, and write on only one side of the paper. Do 
not neglect other and evident duties that you may 
write; but when you write, have it before you as an 
object, definite and clear, to make homes happier, to 
cheer the desponding, and to make the world better 
and brighter. 



Digitized by 



Google 



64 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

CHAPTER VIII. 
LETTER-WRITING. 

There is a beautiful, helpful, and most womanly 
use of the pen, which is within the reach of every one 
of you. You can all write letters. If there be one 
who thinks she cannot, then she has a mistaken idea 
of what a letter really is. When families are, in the 
course of events, separated, their scattered members 
keep most closely bound, and their diverse interests 
are best united, by a frequent interchange of corre- 
spondence. When your home is in a remote nook of 
the mountains, or by some lovely inland river, and you 
wish a new dress or bonnet or book or piece of furni- 
ture from the city, a letter or two will arrange the 
transaction as satisfactorily as a personal visit could. 
(Nobody will plead inability to write this particular style 
of letter, and nobody will admit that she cannot write 
to an absent sister or cousin, and tell the household 
current history. I am not pleading for these ordinary 
letters at all, but for a revival of the old fashion of 
graceful, careful, and elegant correspondence between 
friends ; for letters which shall convey something of the 
writer's heart, and which shall be worth keeping and 
reading when the writer's hand is dust. 



Digitized by 



Google 



LETTER-WRITING. 65 

What is a letter? It is simply a conversation, or 
rather a monologue, committed to paper, and endowed 
with somewhat of permanence. There will be varying 
shades of thought and differences of manner in the 
letters you address to different friends, even as there 
would be differences and varieties in your talk with 
different people. 

It is proper at times to maintain dignity and reserve 
in your letter-writing ; a flavor of formality is not ob- 
jectionable. The fault of the age is to be too dashing, 
too hap-hazard, and too free and easy. 

Then, again, a letter may be gossipy, garrulous, 
filled with trifling detail, and sparkling with mirth. It 
should reflect the mood of the hour, and express the 
mind of the writer. It should never be stilted, affected, 
or conceited, neither florid and involved, nor bombastic 
and inflated. 

A letter of business, addressed to a person of affairs, 
should be studiously brief It should say every essen- 
tial word on the subject in hand, and not one word 
more. It should have nothing superfluous in the way 
of preamble. Plunge at once, without preliminaries, 
into the topic under consideration, and leave off the 
moment you are done. 

A letter to your relatives, or your intimate friends, 
may be as discursive, as extended, and as informal as 
you please. It may relate at any length the homeliest 
every-day happenings, the drolleries of the household, 

Houn with OiiU. (• 

Digitized by VnOOglC 



66 HOURS WITH GIRLS, 

the witticisms of the breakfast-table, and the plans and 
occupations of those about you. It should be a leaf 
out of your own life, with the hues fresh and unfaded, a 
bit of yourself freely given to one in whom you are not 
afraid to confide. It should be you, not as they know 
you who meet you only in society, in a surface-way, 
but you, as father and mother, brothers and sisters, and 
your intimate acquaintances have found you out. 

Premising that your letters are a recognized part of 
your life, I would urge you to devote some time every 
week to writing them. It is well to touch life at many 
points. It is desirable to have many threads binding 
you to homes and circumstances other than your own. 
To use the happy phrase of Mrs. Whitney, you need 
** outings." It is sweet to have a pure, consecrated, 
interior experience of your own; but there is always 
the danger of growing narrow and selfish, if you re- 
main too exclusively in your own home, or dwell too 
constantly on one set of feelings and thoughts. We 
should strive to widen the sphere of our sympathies, 
and to love many rather than few. 

" Wherever in the world I am, 

In whatsoe'er estate, 
I have a fellowship with hearts 

To keep and cultivate, 
And a work of lowly love to do 

For the Lord on whom I wait." 

Politeness requires that every letter shall be an- 
swered. As it is easier to answer a letter when the 



Digitized by 



Google 



LETTER-WRITING, 67 

glow of having received it is fresh, and you feel as 
' though space were annihilated and you were near your 
correspondent, it is a good plan to reply to all letters 
promptly. 

Postal cards are convenient for those who are in 
haste, but too often they do away with the sweet, full, 
long letters which women have always found pleasure 
in writing. Who can make love, or tenderly chide, or 
tell of anxiety relieved, sorrow soothed, or gratitude 
awakened, on a postal? The pretty, flat card was 
never intended for these purposes, indeed; but there 
it is — so handy, so easily to be seized in a moment of 
haste, and a quick pen can so swiftly dash off the bare 
facts, that the barn took fire last night, the horse be- 
came lame, or Aunt Patty's new dress is deficient by a 
quarter of a yard. On the narrow margin left, a refer- 
ence can be inserted, telling of father's rheumatism, or 
the baby's croup. And then, crowded away up in a 
comer, comes the " Love to all." The card once sent, 
conscience ceases to be troublesome, and its monoto- 
nous, " Write to Susie," " Write to Lillie," is heard 
faintly, if it do not entirely cease. You have sent the 
card, and you will soon send the long letter. The long 
letter will be sent when the Sunday-school picnic and 
the camp -meeting are over, when your new suit is fin- 
ished, and the peaches are canned, and a number of 
other things are done. 

Deferring a letter is like the forgetting to return an 



Digitized by 



Google 



68 HOURS WITH GIRLS, 

umbrella. The longer one neglects it, the longer one 
will do so. A great many charming friendships are 
gradually dissolved, home ties are weakened on the 
part of the absent, and those who love each other drift 
apart, through the indolence which looks on letter- 
writing as burdensome, and the discourtesy which does 
not attend to it promptiy. 

The busiest people are usually less fluent in finding 
reasons for this special neglect than the idlers. Ma- 
caulay, in his brilliant Parliamentary career, when en- 
gagements were crowding upon him and he had enough 
responsibility to fill the hands of two or three men, 
never failed to write delightful epistles to his sisters. 
They are so gay, so witty, and so wise, that they fairly 
illuminate the pages of his memoir. The letters of 
Miss Sedgwick are models of style. But why do I 
specify hers, except on the ground that they are the 
latest I have read ? Some of the finest contributions 
from women to polite literature are in the form of let- 
ters. You will think of Madame Swetchine, of Euge- 
nie de Gudnin, of Madame de Sdvignd, of Lucy Aikin, 
and of others whose correspondence possessed a charm 
which is like the perfume of roses, abiding and sweet. 
Their letters were not written hurriedly, nor regarded 
as of secondary importance, but they paid their corre- 
spondents the compliment of taking pains. 

There is one use of the pen which must commend 
itself to you if you wish to serve the Master. Perhaps 



Digitized by 



Google 



LE TIER- WRITING, 69 

you are sometimes too timid to say the word for Jesus 
which is in your heart, but can you not write it ? Can 
you not slip the littie note into the book you lend your 
friend, weaving in with its loving thought of her, a 
loving thought of Him who died for you both ? Can you 
you not write a letter to the absent Sunday scholar, invi- 
ting her to give the dew of her childhood to the Lord ? 
Nobody will be hurt or offended by such letters as 
these, if they are written in the right spirit, and sent 
forth with prayer that they may be blessed. We are 
too prone to be silent about the things of the heavenly 
kingdom. It would help us thitherward, if we but 
looked daily to the city of God, as the end of our 
journeying ; and we should be stimulated and strength- 
ened if we communed together by the way. 

Write letters to kindred, to friends, to dear children, 
to servants who have a claim on your remembrance 
when you are away from home, and to those who are 
in any way subject to your influence. Let no week go 
by, without at least one letter being sent out to do its 
sweet work for Christ. To comfort the bereaved, to 
reprove the wandering, to crown the joy of the happy, 
and to entertain some dear invalid, shut in from active 
duty, what so potential as a letter ! 

Now suffer a bit of advice about the mechanism, of 
the letter. Always, except to your very dearest and 
nearest, sign your full name. Girls write so much alike, 
now that penmanship is taught According to system, 



Digitized by 



Google 



70 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

that if your correspondent receives many letters, she 
may be at a loss at once to identify you by the Nettie, 
or Nina, or Nellie, which is the pet home name you 
bear. It is, I think, more dignified to write one's 
Christian name without a diminutive on most occasions. 
One never sees a young man undertaking enterprises, 
graduating, or doing anything worth while, as Johnnie 
or Benny. Why should his sister be Jennie or Maggie, 
away from the fireside. 

Always fully prepay the postage on your letter, 
and if it be on your own affairs, and require an answer, 
enclose return stamps. This little matter is often 
neglected through inadvertence, but it is imperative in 
its propriety. 

It is not kind to write letters out of forlorn and 
morbid and sorrowful moods, sending them forth to 
darken friendly hearts with their shadow when it may 
have passed from you, and you may be dwelling in the 
sunlight. Let your letters be uncomplaining, cheerful, 
and tranquil, and do not write when the gloom is upon 
you. It is wrong to add a feather^s weight to the load 
which some affectionate spirit has to bear. 

Nor is it in good taste to fill a whole page with 
apologies and excuses. They are very uninteresting 
reading. Do not cross your letter, nor write illegibly. 
The last fault is particularly an offence against good 
manners. Never write when you are vexed or anger- 
ed, lest you say what your cooler judgment may not 



Digitized by 



Google 



LE TTER- WRITING. 7 1 

approve ; and while a spoken word may be recalled or 
explained, a written one remains, to testify to your 
mistaken haste. Indiscreet letters have ended friend- 
ships which have grown and flourished through the 
changes of years. 

Nor should you under any circumstances ever 
stoop to a clandestine correspondence, or write to 
any one whom your parents and friends regard with 
suspicion. Be above indirection, and never at any 
period of life carry on a secret flirtation, or engage in 
anything which requires to be concealed. 

Some of us would be mortified, were the sentimen- 
tality of youthful days, innocent though it may have 
been, remorselessly exposed in print. It is as well to 
refrain from exaggerations, even in our moments of 
love and confidence. Life should be sincere and 
dignified. 

People, of course, like to open their own correspon- 
dence. The charm would be taken from the tenderest 
letter, were other eyes than our own to dwell upon it 
first. We ought to remember this with regard to 
children. I have seen a little face clouded, and bright 
eyes dimmed with tears, when mother or sister has 
thoughtlessly opened the note which came to Ethel or 
Grace. If we desire to induce in the young a constant 
consideration for the rights of others, we shall do it 
best by keeping fast by the golden rule. 



Digitized by 



Google 



72 HOURS WITH GIRLS, 

CHAPTER IX. 
HOSPITALITY. 

One of the pleasantest things about a home of one*s 
own is this : that it gives one an opportunity to exer- 
cise hospitality. The burdens of Hfe are so many, and 
the state of domestic service is often so unsatisfactory, 
that some families shrink from inviting guests, because 
they feel that guests add to their cares. On the other 
hand, some households ar^ never alone. A tide of 
company ebbs and flows through them at all seasons, 
and people are for ever going and coming. 

To either of these extremes a happy medium is to 
be preferred. We should be glad if we have kindred 
and friends who can often come under our roof, sit at 
our table, and bless us with their presence. We should 
not repine if we have seasons of being alone, with only 
our own dear ones to make up the circle. In the plan 
of our home-life hospitality should be included, and 
we ought not selfishly to determine that we will live 
with closed doors. But we must not forget that in all 
high living and deep thinking, there must be a margin 
for solitude too. 

When you invite guests to visit you, it is right that 
you should prepare the chamber and decorate the 



Digitized by 



Google 



HOSPITALITY, 73 

parlor in their honor. It is only right that the viands 
on the table should be of the choicest, and most dantily 
served. But you should not oppress your friend with 
attention, nor embarrass her with service. Let her 
feel at home, not by treating her with rude discourtesy 
or unceremonious neglect, but by seeing that provision 
is made for her comfort, that she is freely allowed to 
do the things she likes best, and that she is not re- 
stricted and fatigued by unnecessary formalities. 

Consult her tastes as to the style of entertainments 
she most enjoys. Nowhere is the room for the exer- 
cise of a fine tact more easily conspicuous than here. 
It is well to put your own pressing work aside, so that 
you can be at leisure to sit and go out with your 
friend ; and yet you should never allude to this, nor 
make a merit of it, nor speak as though her being with 
you obliged you to deviate greatly from your ordinary 
modes of action. 

When friends come to your house unexpectedly, 
and at hours which are perhaps inconvenient, if you 
care truly for them you will not be fretful or distressed 
at the interruption of your engagements. Who knows 
but the very best and happiest thing for you is folded, 
like the perfume in the flower's petals, in what your 
friend shall say? The day may be enriched by her 
entrance upon it. Some wise word may drop from her 
lips, which shall help you over a hard place to-morrow. 
Some drollery of hers may oil the home machinery, 



Hours with OirU. 



Digitized by 



Google 



74 HOURS WITH GIRLS, 

and keep it from friction. Or, instead of receiving, 
yours may be the more blessed privilege of giving 
some strength and joy. 

If you receive life's interruptions in the right spirit 
and temper, they will prove to be sweet and gracious 
benedictions. Remember the lesson in Keble's hymn, 
which, though oft repeated, can never be too deeply 
taken to heart. 

" If, on our daily course, our mind 
Be set to hallow all we find. 
New treasures still, of countless price, 
God will provide for sacrifice. 

" Old friends, old scenes, will lovelier be, 
As more of heaven in each we see ; 
Some softening gleam of love and prayer 
Shall dawn on every cross and care. 

" The trivial round, the common task, 
Would furnish all we ought to ask : 
Room to deny ourselves ; a road 
To bring us, daily, nearer God." 

There are some little ways in which a daughter at 
home can relieve her mother of needless care, and one 
of them is the duty attending to the appointments of the 
dining-room and table. You may not have fine and 
costly linen or rare and exquisite china and glass. 
Solid silver, or even elegant plated-ware, may be be- 
yond your means. But what you have may be perfect 



Digitized by 



Google 



HOSPITALITY. 75 

of its kind, or as nearly so as practicable under the cir- 
cumstances. You should try to have a spotless table- 
cloth and clean napkins, folded in the same creases and 
free from wrinkles. 

Just here a caution. If in your household there is 
one younger or older who is awkward or infirm, and 
has a really incurable habit of overturning a teacup 
or the vinegar cruet, or spilling orange-juice or gravy 
on the cloth, and thereby taxing your forbearance 
by wounding your housewifely pride and love of 
neatness, you have need for special watchfulness and 
prayer that you may not be hurried into sin on these 
trying occasions, and also for the exercise of a little 
prudence and contrivance that you may as far as pos- 
sible avert them. Above all, do not let the spots on 
the cloth provoke you to sharp words which will cut 
into the sad and loving heart of the irresponsible of- 
fender, and leave on your own soul a stain darker than 
that on the tablecloth. It is a good plan to double a 
large napkin and spread it at the place of the person 
who is constantly transgressing against neatness, and 
also to see that the place itself is as favorable as possi- 
ble for the avoidance of such mishaps. The napkin, if 
spotted, can be more easily cleansed than the cloth, 
which will often, though not invariably, be in this man- 
ner protected from injury. Accidents to the tablecloth, 
like all the occurrences of our daily lives, afford an op- 
porftmity for glorifying God, and may be made a means 



Digitized by 



Google 



76 HOURS WITH GIRLS, 

of grace to ourselves and others. Of course those un- 
der authority should be taught carefulness in this as in 
other respects. 

Your dishes may, in most cases, be whole, and your 
food, though plain, may we. well cooked and agreeably 
served. If your mother is too busy with her numerous 
occupations to look after the minor matters of the table, 
such as seeing that the cruets are supplied, the salt-cel- 
lars evenly filled, the mustard fresh, and the sugar- 
bowls replenished, it will be a help to her to have you 
take all thought for these little things entirely from her 
mind. Whatever you do undertake, do not shirk it, 
but let its responsibility rest on you, and let others feel 
that you may be depended upon. 

The ordinary home table ought to be nice enough, 
at any time, to invite the presence of a guest who has 
happened in. Nor should you suffer in your own mind 
a single doubt as to the fitness of the entertainment. 
Let your welcome, at least, be full of cordiality. 

It requires almost as much tact to visit agreeably 
as to entertain successfully. The young girl who is 
going away from home should, so far as possible, ac- 
commodate herself to the ways of her friend's house. 
It is not mannerly, to use an old-fashioned phrase, to 
keep breakfast waiting, to be late at prayers or absent 
from them, to linger at a picture-gallery or the park 
so that you delay the dinner, disconcert your hostess, 
and vex the servants. One should give no extra trou- 



Digitized by 



Google 



HOSPITALITY. yj 

ble when one is received into the inner heart and Ufe 
of another's home. 

If you will pardon the suggestion, you will be fas- 
tidious in the care you take of your friend's pretty 
guest-chamber while you stay therein. The lovely 
littie mats, the rarely beautiful touches here and there, 
the handsome furniture, and the soft carpet, should 
none of them be abused. Keep the room in good 
order, hang your dress in the closet, and when you 
return from a walk or drive put your wrappings, not 
on the bed or a chair, but in the proper and provided 
place for them. 

Be obliging, but do not be obtrusive. If you can 
be of use, and your assistance in any department of 
housekeeping is acceptable, you will not refrain from 
giving it ; but nothing is more annoying than offers of 
service which is not desired. Your own good sense 
must be your guide, and should be a safe and suffi- 
cient one. 

Do not monopolize the easiest seats and the warm- 
est corners, nor take for your own use the chair in 
which some aged person is accustomed to sit. Be 
pleased with whatever is done for you, and show your 
pleasure. 

Be at the pains to have a little work of your own, 
or an interesting book, to which you can resort at 
hours when the family are engaged in their necessary 
work. Please remember that what they plan for your 



Digitized by 



Google 



78 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

enjoyment, it is imperative upon you to endeavor to 
enjoy. 

The dearest guest may make the mistake of stay- 
ing too long and wearing out her welcome. It is al- 
ways well to go before your friends ' feel in the least 
weary of you. 



Digitized by 



Google 



THE GATE OF THE LIPS. 79 



CHAPTER X. 
THE GATE OF THE LIPS, 

The highest style of conversation is indicated by 
the apostle, who talks of the duty of speaking the truth 
in love. So much of human happiness and so much of 
human misery depend upon the right use of the tongue, 
that I think we cannot do better than make up our 
minds what is the law which for us shall open and shut 
the gate of the lips. The Bible is full of commands, 
reproofs, hints, suggestions, and illustrations, on this 
subject. In the Psalms, the tongue is synonymous 
with the glory of man, since by it he is enabled to praise 
God. The strong expression, "scourge," is used by 
one of Job's friends in speaking of the tongue : " Thou 
shalt be delivered from the scourge of the tongue.". 
Solomon declares his horror and dislike of those who 
brawl and quarrel. James, in far later days, speaks of 
the tongue as " a fire, a world of iniquity." 

We are told that by our words we shall be justified, 
and by our words condemned ; and there is a distinct 
assertion that for every idle word we shall one day give 
an account. So it is the part of wisdom to be careful 
in our speech. 



Digitized by 



Google 



8o HOURS WITH GIRLS, 

Nothing is stronger in its power, either for helping 
or hurting, than a word. Gentle, kind, affectionate 
words are never lost. They give a forward impulse 
to good deeds, and they are passed along, like coins 
that have a golden value. Harsh, censorious, and ma- 
licious words are passed along too, and they are like 
thistle-seed scattered by the wayside and caught up by 
the wind ; one cannot gather them up nor explain them 
away. Untruthful, slanderous, and wicked words, are 
emissaries of the evil one, and they do his work in a 
world of sorrow and shame. 

It is not necessary that our daily talk should never 
touch upon persons and personal affairs, in order to be 
free from the leaven of unkindness. There is a great 
deal of gossip which is friendly, innocent, and com- 
mendable, and the word itself had originally this sense ; 
but in the imperfection of the common practice it has 
by degrees deteriorated, so that now when we hear it 
we at once think of light and trivial speculations, and 
•the retailing of odds and ends about our neighbors 
which do not in the least concern us. It is quite right 
that we should be pleased with the good fortune of 
those we know, and that little congratulatory obsei*\'a- 
tions should go from one to another when a member 
of our circle arrives at distinction, receives a prize, or 
does some noble thing. It is quite the reverse when 
gossip descends to relating details which are private, 
to telling that which it would be disagreeable to our 



Digitized by 



Google 



THE DOOR OF THE LIPS, 8l 

friends to have discussed, or to tampering with mo- 
tives which are not known to any but God. 

So far as we are concerned, let us keep the gate of 
the lips from insincerity, from malicious talk, and from 
slander. It will be well to have a lofty standard of 
right in our minds, and to adhere to it strictly. The 
Rev. H. R. Reynolds of England, in a sermon on this 
topic says pithily, '* There is nothing so much in our 
power as are the words of our mouth. It is possible 
for us to utter holy things, to speak God's praise, to 
breathe forth kindness in pure and gentle words ; or it 
IS possible for us to force our lips to silence, and make 
our words few." Impulsive people who speak hastily 
and regret at leisure, unforgiving people who speak 
bitterly, and bind themselves by mistaken vows, and 
thoughtless people who do not estimate the value of 
words at all, but who speak idly and at random, should 
remember this thought of the eloquent divine. We 
cannot always govern the temper of our souls, nor re- 
strain the swift upheaving of vehement passion, but we 
can say, " Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther," and 
we can refuse to speak when we are influenced by re- 
sentment or angered at injustice. 

We have to some extent considered this in the 
chapter on Self- Control, so now I want to talk to you 
about another phase of speech. 

A lady's accents should be pure, her tones sweet, 
and her choice of language fastidious. The use of 



ironni with Ghis. 



Digitized by 



Google 



82 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

slang, to add piquancy to our talk, has become too 
common. It always pains and jars upon a well-bred 
person, when the slang of the streets falls glibly from a 
rosebud mouth. Too often we hear it in the drawing- 
room, and are shocked that words and phrases origi- 
nating in the markets, on the wharves, and in the com- 
merce of the town, should have invaded the precincts 
of home. Every young girl has her own share in 
making and keeping society pure and elevated. Do 
you recall Ethel Lynn's beautiful stanzas, entitled 
"Woman's Kingdom"? 

" Reaching high, 
Its walls rise upward to the sky, 
For weary souls who crave her aid, 
For frightened souls, sinsick, afraid, 
While she beside the postern stands 
To hold up weak and weary hands. 

"Her throne, the hallowed chamber where 
Her child is taught its evening prayer ; 
Her crown, a good man's steadfast love, 
Pure gold that fire shall only prove; 
Her warders, only loving prayers. 
To guard the feet of stumbling cares; 

" Her tribute, loving hearts and true ; 
Her orders, Faith's broad ribbon blue. 
Decked with the cross, and starry Hope 
Borne on a shining anchor up." 

Do n't forget, my dear girls, that each of us may have 
our part in this kingdom, and we must never underrate 
our power. 



Digitized by 



Google 



THE DOOR OF THE LIPS, 83 

Mrs. Hayes, when she entered the White Hanse, 
quietly said that she should carry her temperance prin- 
ciples along with her. Her determination not to offer 
wine on her table met with fierce opposition in some 
quarters, for fi-om the early days of the Republic wine- 
drinking had been the social usage there. She en- 
countered the opposition with silent firmness, went 
pleasantly on her way, making her entertainments ele- 
gant, refined, and beautiful, and the influence of her 
example is felt in society, and felt for good, throughout 
the whole Union. In Philadelphia, New York, Chi- 
cago, and San Francisco, the cause of temperance is 
greatly assisted by the practice and consistency of Mrs. 
Hayes. Not every one of us has so wide a sphere 
or so conspicuous an opportunity as the chief lady in 
the land, but each has a cordon of hearts which feel 
her power, each has loving eyes that watch her con- 
stantly, and each is surrounded by some who take 
impressions for their lives from her manners and her 
methods. Determine that slang shall not creep in 
where you abide. 

Determine, further, that nobody shall go unreproved 
who, in your presence, sneers at sacred things, or uses 
the words of Scripture to point a foolish jest. The 
temptation to do this comes too readily to an irrespon- 
sible tongue. Never hesitate to show that you do not 
at all approve of such levity. Refrain from it entirely, 
and show displeasure if others indulge in it. 



Digitized by 



Google 



84 HOURS WITH QIRLS, 

Need I caution my readers against letting profanity 
issue through the gate of the lips ? You think not. I 
wish I could be sure that neither Mabel, nor Clara, nor 
Daisy ever sins in this way. But I too frequently hear 
Goodness! Gracious! Mercy! and the like exclama- 
tions, springing easily to the lips of school-girls, to feel * 
that the third commandment is as truly understood and 
as faithfully obeyed as it ought to be. It may never 
have occurred to those who thus use these words as 
expletives, as expressions of amazement, satisfaction, 
or pleasure, tliat they are the attributes of God, and 
worthy of being reverentially used. 

What is the law of our Lord ? 

" Let your communication be, Yea, yea ; Nay, nay ; 
for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil." 

Exaggeration should not be suffered, under the 
winning garb of poetry, or mantled as a vivid imagina- 
tion, to become the habit of our speech. Exaggerated 
speech implies exaggerated thought, and we cannot be 
sure of ourselves if we are not always simply true. 

Sometimes there is a conflict between courtesy and 
sincerity, which makes it difficult for the conscientious 
person to decide precisely what she shall say. She 
desires, first of all, to do what she thinks right, but 
she does not wish to wound the feelings of an acquaint- 
ance. Perhaps she compromises the matter by saying 
some pleasant thing which she does not mean, and 
then, going on her way, revolves uneasily in her own 



Digitized by 



Google 



THE DOOR OF THE LIPS, 85 

mind the reply, or the address, or the invitation given, 
half smiling and half grieving over her action. Girls, 
there is not usually a conflict between good manners 
and integrity, but when there is, truth should be your 
primary consideration, and politeness the secondary 
one. 

And one thought more. 

" Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of 
my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my 
Strength and my Redeemer." 

As followers of Jesus, we have a deep interest in 
thinking how we can serve him, not afar off, but near 
at hand. What can we do, day by day, for the Friend 
who is doing everything for us ? How can we show 
him our love ? How can we wear his colors, so that 
all who see us may know that we belong to him ? 

We should be glad and proud to serve so glorious 
a Master. We should give him no reluctant service. 
Surely our thoughts should often be of him and of his 
grace, and we should never hesitate to say words in 
earnest to the gay, the merry, the sad, or the hopeless, 
about Jesus and his love. 



Digitized by 



Google 



S6 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 



CHAPTER XI. 

DAYS OF SORROW, 

My heart ached when, one fair, sweet morning in 
the spring, a friend came and told me of a dear young 
girl who had recently lost her mother, and who felt 
that she could never again be happy. 

This conviction that the joy of life is over, that we 
must walk in the shadow till the end, is common to 
most of us when we are in the loneliness of a deep 
grief. How slowly the days wear away, each one as 
long as three ordinary ones! How little interest we 
take in affairs which formerly engrossed us ! How 
utterly impossible and undesirable it seems, while the 
bereavement is fresh, that we should ever allow our- 
selves to be diverted from the pangs and the sad con- 
solations of memory. And long after we have learned 
to take up the life-tasks again, and to enter upon 
scenes of animation or pleasure, there is a litde niche 
in the heart, where a name, unforgotten, is laid up as 
in a shrine, where we hang garlands, and which we 
often turn to in moments of indescribable longing. Oh, 
that cry of the heart for its own, its own, who can never 
come back ! 



Digitized by 



Google 



DA VS OF SORROW. 87 

" Oh, for the touch of a vanished hand, 
And the sound of a voice that is still !" 

is the moan of every soul whose darlings have gone on, 
who learns patience and resignation only by degrees, 
and who gradually finds that heaven is becoming the 
home which is fuller than the earthly one of kindred 
and friends. 

The youngest of us has had her days of sorrow, 
and to all of us they will, sooner or later, be multiplied. 
In what spirit are we to meet them ? How are we to 
endure the sharp strokes of loss and pain ? How are 
we to go on with life and duty, when all duty and 
all life are encompassed with the cloud that has hid- 
den our loved from our sight. As Mrs. Browning 
sings, 

" The wind that swept them out of sin 
Has ruffled all our vesture. 
On the shut door that let them in 
We beat with frantic gesture. 

" But God gives patience. Love learns strength, 

And Faith remembers promise, 4r 

And Hope itself can smile at length 
On other hopes gone from us." 

It is natural to mourn for our dead. We should be 
cold and hard-hearted if we shed no tears and heaved 
no sighs when the precious ones who have been with 
us for days and years are no longer here. But exces- 
sive grief unfits us for attention to the dear ones who 



Digitized by 



Google 



88 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

remain. No one can chide the mourner for wearing a 
saddened face, or for asking for a brief respite from 
accustomed cares. But to go for long periods of time 
shrouded in gloom, to cultivate a morbidness of mood, 
and to impose a shadow and an oppression on all 
whom we meet, is selfish, and is not brave. As soon 
as possible, especially if we believe God's word, we 
shall begin to look up and to inquire what stars of 
promise gleam out for us on the pages of inspiration. 

I know a lovely woman who some years ago lost 
her husband. He Bad been always her lover, her 
guide, and her protector. The circumstances of his 
death were very distressing. A whole community 
shared her sorrow and mourned for her and her little 
ones, for the good physician left a vacant place which 
it would be very hard to supply. The eldest daughter 
was a student in a distant school, and when the funeral 
was over she returned to her books and her classes. 

When her father had been gone a year, on the an- 
niversary of his death the young girl came home. All 
the long miles of her journey, as the swift railway cars 
glided on, she kept thinking of her mother and dread- 
ing the sadness which would invest a hearth where 
sunshine and gladness had always been regnant. But 
lo ! on the threshold the calm, beautiful mother met 
her with a smile of welcome, the other children came 
running gleefully up to kiss her, the supper-table was 
spread with the nicest food, and flowers stood on the 



Digitized by 



Google 



DA}'S OF SORROW, 89 

mantels and tables. Nothing about the house was 
gloomy, but everything spoke of cheerfulness and 
hope. 

"Why, mother dear," said dive, "I dreaded to 
come home. I thought you would be so sad to-day." 

" Do you not remember," was the reply, " that I 
have something to make me glad ? One year of our 
separation is over. I am one year nearer meeting your 
dear father again." 

In our days of sorrow we should strive to look up, 
and not down. Not so much into the lowly grave 
where the precious dust reposes, as onward to the 
bright heaven where the ransomed spirit has gone. 
Absent from the body, indeed, but present with the 
Lord are those who have belonged to the Lord here. 

There is a deep and never-failing well of comfort in 
those tender words of Christ : " Father, I will that they 
also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I 
am, that they may behold my glory which thou hast 
given me." 

We should not spend our days and nights in sim- 
ply lamenting our losses and crosses, but should more 
and more try to realize the fact that earth is only the 
place of preparation, of conflict, and of pilgrimage ; the 
real life, the real home of the soul is with Him who 
gave himself to save us. 

One of the most poignant elements of pain, in days 
of grief, is found in the persistency with which we re- 



Digitized by 



Google 



90 HOl/KS WITH GIRLS. 

call unkind, thoughtless, or negligent acts or words of 
ours towards the dear ones when they were §till with 
us. We are tortured by one and another remem- 
brance, and over and over, when it is too late, we sigh 
at our omissions and wonder at our blindness. Why 
were we ever irritable, impatient, or perverse, with those 
whom we really loved so tenderly ? Why were we so 
cold, so undemonstrative? Why did we not oftener 
tell them, by caresses, by gifts, by embraces, by fre- 
quent letters and visits, how large a part of our happi- 
ness they made ? The reproaches do us no good, and 
they can do no good to those who are lying under the 
daisies, but they recur and form an exquisite and sub- 
tle torment to the wounded heart. 

Let us learn from this experience, which few of us 
have not tasted, to be all gentleness and tenderness and 
patience with the living. If there be a dear aged friend 
under your roof, bear with her infirmities, reverence 
her feebleness, and attend with deferential love on her 
needs. Make the old happy, and suffer them to lean 
on your strength. If there be children in the house- 
hold, do your share in brightening their hours of sun- 
shine and drying their occasional tears. Do not give 
way to petulance, do not utter stinging, sarcastic 
speeches, and do not be indifferent to the little wants 
of those in your home. One never regrets an act of 
self-denial, a loving word, or a kindness done, when 
the opportunities for these are gone for ever. 



Digitized by 



Google 



DA VS OF SORROW, 91 

We learn through our own sorrows how to help 
others in theirs. A friend told me that when her baby 
died she sat by the cold form, hour after hour, in a sort 
of despair. Friends came and went, tried their best to 
console her, and whispered to her that it was rebellious 
and wicked to give the reins to grief. She should 
think how much evil and suffering the babe was taken 
from, and how safe it was with Jesus. Nothing melted 
or moved her, until there entered a plain 6ld market- 
woman, who sat down quietly beside the litde coffin 
and began to cry. By-and-by she spoke. ** I know 
how you are suffering," she said ; " I have lost six." 

When we once take hom^ to our own conscious- 
ness the thought that our dear Saviour knows and 
comprehends all our feelings, our sorrows, and our 
joys, we are wonderfully strengthened. For though 
human sympathy is sweet, divine compassion is sweet- 
er ; and only they can fully understand this who have 
gone to the Lord when in darkness and trouble, and 
been sustained by the folding around them of the ever- 
lasting arms. 

Few people who leave this world leave it with their 
work finished. Almost always there are projects which 
they undertook, and which were uncompleted, and 
there are enterprises dear to them, which they were 
obliged to give up. One way to keep their memories 
sacred is to take up what they dropped, and carry it 
forward. If it was a mother who has had to go away 



Digitized by 



Google 



92 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

from her children, there will be a satisfaction in so 
bringing up the little ones that she would approve, 
could she see. If it was a dear girl who loved to go 
about among the poor, and to minister to the orphaned 
and the sick, resolve that they at least shall not miss 
her benefactions. Rather than by spending large 
sums on the graves of our friends, should we build 
their monuments by carrying forward their work. 

In any 'case, the sooner we gather courage and 
resolution to begin work of some kind, the sooner 
shali we emerge from the paralysis of sorrow. We 
must take to: heart the lesson preached from every 
low mound in the cemetery: "The time is short." 
There is sornething for us to do, and we have not 
many years remaining in which to do it. We are not 
sure of even one year, or one week. Therefore let us 
not sit with clasped hands, but let us be busy — cheer- 
fully, hopefully, heartily, for the Master is looking on. 

We do not all live so intensely as did. Paul, as did 
John, as have done a multitude of whom the world was 
not worthy. As Andrew Marvel wrote, 

" But at my back I always hear 
Time's winged chariots hurrying near, 
And yonder all before me lie 
Deserts of vast eternity." 

This is the spirit which has animated men and 
women who have set the world forward on its way. 
It should, partially at least, influence us every one. 



Digitized by 



Google 



DA VS OF SORROW. 93 

We have only the present on which to count, but 
if we use every present moment well and grandly, we 
shall never have the sense that life has been wasted 
and spent in vain. 

" Always strike your hour," said a gentleman to a 
young girl, in an excellent story entided " Our Helen." 

" I do n't think I know what you mean, sir." 

"Why, do as a clock does when its long hand 
reaches twelve. It strikes its hour, its appointed hour, 
and then goes on to the next, without looking forward 
or back." 

That is good advice for all days, but it is good 
advice especially for those who are ready to feel that 
life has nothing more to offer them. Happiness may 
be shadowed, friends may be removed, fortune may be 
dissipated, health may be shattered, but there is always 
duty left. It may be active, or it may be passive, but 
it is there ; and if you accept it and try to live up to 
its full measure, asking God's blessing, you will be 
sustained and assisted. 

By-and-by too, almost imperceptibly, you will dis- 
cover that the sorrowful days are not forgotten, but so 
glorified that you enjoy all your pleasures the more 
because you have had them, and they have been con- 
secrated to you. 



Digitized by 



Google 



94 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 



CHAPTER XII. 

HAVING A GRIEVANCE. 

Very different from the atmosphere which enfolds 
days of real sorrow, is the thick, blanket-like fog 
which overhangs the days of people who have a griev- 
ance to bear. They go around with an injured air, as 
though they were the victims of some cruel fate. 
There may be blue sky somewhere, but it is invisible 
from their standpoint. The worst of their prevalent 
temper of mind is, that it spreads like an infection. 
Each person who comes within range of their influence 
is saddened, or fretted, or angered by their behavior, 
and everything which in turn they touch, gets a 
crooked impulse. 

Now if any set of people anywhere should, as a 
rule, be blithe, lighthearted, cheery, and gay, it should 
be our girls. They are young. Youth itself is an 
immense possession and a magnificent advantage. 
They are surrounded by those who love them. They 
can diffuse happiness by simply being pleased and 
happy, and letting it show in their faces and their 
words that they are so. Yet some of them go moping 
about with weary eyes and unsmiling lips; some of 



Digitized by 



Google 



HAVING A GRIEVANCE. 95 

them assume expressions of melancholy; and others 
nurse in their hearts the feeling that they are over- 
looked and ill-treated, where they should be admired 
and considered. 

I once knew a tiny maiden who, on her first going 
to school, used to retire to a corner of the playground 
at recess, and pretend to be sad, so that her mates 
might come and wonder at and console her. She liked, 
wee woman that she was, to be the object of atten- 
tion, and though doubtless a half- unconscious vanity 
was the mainspring of her action, the morbid desire 
for sympathy, which may make even a child miserable, 
was there as well. I am not sure but that motive in- 
spires not a little melodrama in childhood, of which 
the spectators are not informed even vaguely. 

The recollection of this baby actress often comes to 
me now, when I meet healthy, happy girls who seem 
to think it the proper thing to nurse a grievance. 
One, whom I will call Stella, was here in my room a 
while ago. It is the sunniest and brightest of days. 
Rain fell last night, and washed every leaf and blade 
of grass until they all shine. The dandelions under 
the window gem the lawn like golden stars. A honey- 
bee is flying from flower to flower, gathering sweets to 
carry to the hive. The sky bends lovingly over the 
earth, unflecked by clouds. Stella came in, fresh as 
the morning, with bright and rosy cheeks, but she had 
not talked with me five minutes before I discovered 



Digitized by 



Google 



96 HOURS WITH GIRLS, 

that she was in a mood for making complaint of the 
universe. Nothing in her Ufe was satisfactory. She 
was not beloved like Lucy. She had not Nellie's 
advantages. She saw Cornelia preferred before her. 
Her new dress did not fit perfectly, and the trimming 
was not the match she desired. Madame Snipkins 
invariably bestowed more labor on Clara's and Bella's 
dresses than on hers. 

I am sorry for Stella. Already her naturally pretty 
face begins to be marred by the presence of this unde- 
sirable spirit. Discontent, envy or jealousy can take 
the zest from every pleasure, and dash every joy with 
the bitterness of disappointment. Marks and hues, 
graven by petulance and irritability, are writing them- 
selves on Stella's brow. That telltale feature, the 
mouth, has taken a trick of dropping at the corners, 
and curling into a sneer of disdain and dissatisfaction. 

If for no higher reason than the mere wish to re- 
main attractive and charming in the eyes of. others, it 
would be worth the while of young ladies to avoid poor 
Stella's error, and cultivate a placid habit of making 
the very best of things as they happen to exist. Day 
by day the soul writes itself on the countenance. The 
pure, sweet, contented, and unselfish spirit shines 
through clear eyes, beams on an open face, and im- 
parts loveliness to even plain and homely features. 
No matter how deficient in beauty a young girl may 
be, there is nothing to hinder her from beginning to 



Digitized by 



Google 



HAVING A GRIEVANCE. 97 

gain something far better than mere exterior elegance. 
The richest blending of cream and rose in the com- 
plexion may be disfigured by accident, impaired by 
exposure, and imperilled by disease ; but the beauty of 
the soul will shine out like a flame through a transpar- 
ency, and show itself superior to the skin. Equally, 
a predominant unhappiness of temper will reveal itself 
in the countenance in time, and no assumption of a 
transient amiability will entirely remove its effects. 

Have you a fancied grievance ? Have you drifted 
into a state of self-pity, in which you are sensitive, 
easily hurt, and a target for many random arrows ? 

Perhaps you have some real burdens to bear. You 
may have tastes which are ungratified, ambitions un- 
fulfilled, aspirations denied, and talents unemployed. 
It is possible that you suffer from that solitude which 
the absence of congenial companionship always causes. 
Your education may have set you apart from your 
companions, and given you a wider oudook than theirs. 
Yet do not permit in your heart a feeling of impatience 
with dear ones in your household, although while you 
a?e roving in thought over wide fields of poetry, they 
are chiefly interested in butter and eggs. These have 
their uses too. The kitchen is as legitimate a place 
for woman's labor and thought as the parlor and the 
library. Your education has signally failed if it has. 
not taught you to look upon small, practical, and in- 
conspicuous things as having their due value. You 

Hours w(Hi Ohifl. ^ 

Digitized by VnOOglC 



98 HOURS WITH GIRLS, 

should not smile complacently over the mistakes in 
syntax of the woman, be she mother, auntie, or ser- 
vant, who can make better bread, better pies, and bet- 
ter puddings than you can. There are more educations 
than one, and intelligence is not restricted to the love 
or the lore of books. The man or woman whose faulty 
grammar shocks your ear may be learned in the un- 
written science of the fields — may have gathered facts 
unknown to you with regard to the mysteries of nature 
and the habitudes of birds and plants. In all knowl- 
edge there is power. And it is the conceit of igno- 
rance which inflates half-taught people, and seeks to 
make them absurd by the overestimate they place on 
the littie they have acquired. It was the wise Socrates 
who said that he knew nothing but this — ^that he knew 
nothing. As a rule, the wisest are the simplest Agas- 
siz was as gende as a child, and Mary Somerville was 
as modest, with*her honors thick upon her, as a blush- 
ing girl beneath her mother's wing. 

Did you ever meet with girls who were ashamed of 
their parents, and apologetic for them, who tried to 
keep them in the background when there was com- 
pany in the house ? I did on one occasion, and I shall 
never forget my sense of shame on their account — 
shame for their unfilial behavior and for my sex, which 
they disgraced. 

I once received a call of ceremony from two well- 
dressed and well-mannered young women, who invited 



Digitized by 



Google 



HAVING A GRIEVANCE. 99 

me to return their visit. When I did so I was treated 
with much affability, and entertained with pleasant 
conversation, refined attention, and music. During 
my call, an elderly and old-fashioned-looking lady en- 
tered the parlor, hovered a moment or two near the 
group, as if uncertain of her reception and unassured 
of her welcome, and at last left the room, no notice 
having been taken of her by either of her daughters, for 
such they were. After her departure, one of them 
whispered confidentially, " We have to excuse a great 
deal in ma. She is not used to society. She is very 
uncongenial to us both." Poor, unhonored mother ! 
How I pitied her when I learned how she had toiled 
and denied herself for these ungrateful children. 

As the opposite of this, let me relate another story. 
At a gay watering-place one summer, there was a 
bright and lovely girl, the acknowledged belle of the 
season, the queen of the parlor and the fete. Her 
vivacity, her sweet face, her quick wit, and her bril- 
liant singing and playing were the themes of admiring 
tongues. She was accompanied by a retiring and dig- 
nified lady, who had been her governess, and was now 
her friend. It was understood that her mother was an 
invalid, who preferred to keep apart from such festivi- 
ties, and stayed much in her own chamber. One morn- 
ing Mabel was as usual the leading spirit, the centre of 
a circle of young people. They were gathered on the 
broad veranda of the hotel, the girls with their grace- 



Digiti: 



izsGkby Google 



100 HOURS WITH GIRLS, 

ful knitting or embroidery, the young gentlemen help- 
ing or hindering, and watching the deft movements of 
white and dimpled hands with admiration. The flash 
and glitter of keen repartee went on, and merry laugh- 
ter echoed on the summer air. 

Presently an odd figure, bizarre in costume, un- 
couth in appearance, and feeble in movement, issued 
from a doorway near, and addressed an order to a 
servant in a harsh, inharmonious voice. Possessed by 
the spirit of drollery which sometimes runs away with 
good manners, one or two of the young people began 
in a covert way to make this person the object of their 
ridicule. Instandy Mabel arose, advanced to the lady, 
and to the assembled circle presented her as "My 
mother." She did the right thing, and at once the 
mirth was hushed, and every one reverenced her for 
her daughterly behavior. 

If you have a real grievance, resolutely keep it in 
the background. Let only the pleasant things come to 
the front. If you have an imaginary one, crush it, and 
do not let it crush you. 

Count the mercies, not the misfortunes. " Doe the 
next thynge." Be grateful ever to the Giver of all 
good gifts, who maketh the outgoing of so many of 
our mornings and evenings to rejoice. Believe me, 
that nothing so glorifies life, as the habit of crowning 
its every hour with thanks. 



Digitized by 



Google 



COURAGE. loi 

CHAPTER XIII. 

COURAGE. 

Courage is one of the finest attributes of character, 
and one of the most essential to nobleness of life. You 
need not be reminded that it is of various degrees, and 
that one may possess physical courage, so that a thun- 
der-storm, a runaway horse, or a fire, shall not daunt 
the heart or blanch the cheek, and still be deficient in 
moral fibre. Again, one who is morally and spiritually 
brave, who dares perform a disagreeable duty, and say 
a faithful though unwelconie word in season, may be 
physically timid, afi-aid of the dark, perhaps timorous 
and trembling before the lightning, and ready to scream 
at a mouse or a beetle. 

What I want to impress on you is, that courage of 
both kinds may be cultivated. If we recognize our 
limitations and acknowledge our lacks, we may, by 
patient training, increase our powers and make up our 
deficiencies. It is when we are poor and ignorant, and 
blind, and naked, yet think ourselves wise, and rich, 
and grand, that our poverty works our destruction. 
Self-conceit bars the door against progress. There is 
no improvement possible to those who consider them- 
selves already perfect. 



Digitized by 



Google 



102 HOURS WITH GIRLS, 

I have seen silly girls who plumed themselves on 
being timid, and fancied that an affectation of terror 
made them interesting and attractive. Never was there 
a greater mistake. The spectator may pity the qua- 
king, quivering young lady who faints at the apparition 
of a spider, and daintily sh^eks when she sees the 
peaceful cow, browsing knee-deep in the clover, but 
she awakens only pity, not admiration. That is re- 
served for the brave girl who, while modest and gentle, 
can help herself ; who is equal to the emergency and 
mistress of the situation. 

All through the pages of history, the women who 
challenge the homage of the world are they who rise 
to the hour, and conquer by force of personal character. 
Elizabeth of England was vain, capricious and despotic, 
but she was superbly brave, and beneath her frivolities 
and levities there beat a strong and sturdy heart, which 
refused to be alarmed in the presence of danger. Her 
beautiful cousin of Scodand, Mary, whose loveliness 
has almost drawn a veil over her infamy, was as brave 
as a lioness. Sweet Lady Jane Grey, that pure white 
violet, whom ambitious kinsmen forced to the throne, 
and who perished so soon on the scaffold, was of that 
high order of womanhood in whom fortitude and patience, 
saintly resignation and the gentlest modesty are coin- 
bined. So with hundreds of obscurer women, witness- 
es for Christ of old, or martyrs to the faith in France, 
in England, and in Scotland. The courage which 



Digitized by 



Google 



COURAGE, 103 

endured unmurmuringly for Christ's sake, wins our 
praises now. 

In reading the lives of the three gifted Bronte sis- 
ters, who grew up in the gray old parsonage at Haworth, 
we are struck by a contrast of courage which is very 
marked. Two of the sisters, Emily and Anne, died 
while still quite young, of consumption. The first 
fought against the disease as though it had been an 
enemy, ignored it with fierce vehemence, went steadily 
on with her work, refusing to consult a physician or to 
take remedies, until there came a day when the rattling 
breath and glazing eyes told the family that death had 
arrived. As Charlotte records, sadly, " She was torn, 
conscious, panting, reluctant, though resolute, out of 
life." The pages which tell of her sickness and death 
seem to drip with tears, and her morbid and half insane 
courage was an agony to the dear ones who were not 
permitted to mitigate her sufferings by any tender 
ministries. 

Far otherwise was it with her gentle sister Anne, 
who from the very first felt that her malady might be 
fatal, but used every available means to free herself 
from its grasp. "God's will be done," was the lan- 
guage of her soul, and serenely, sweetly, submissively 
she yielded to that will, though solicitious to live, and 
be well, if life were possible. Very touching and ten- 
der are some lines which were found in her little desk 
after her decease : 



Digitized by 



Google 



104 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

" I hoped that with the brave and strong 
My portioned task might lie ; 
To toil amid the busy throng, 
With purpose pure and high. 

" But God has fixed another part, 
And he has fixed it well. 
I said so with my bleeding heart, 
When first the anguish fell. 

" Thou God hast taken our delight, 
Our treasured hope, away ; 
Thou bidst us now weep through the night, 
And sorrow through the day. 

" These weary hours will not be lost, 
These days of misery, 
These nights of darkness, anguish-tossed 
Can I but turn to thee, 

" With secret labor to sustain 

In humble patience every blow ; 
To gather fortitude from pain. 
And holiness from woe. 

" Thus let me serve thee from my heart, 
Whate'er my written fate ; 
Whether thus early to depart, 
Or yet a while to wait. 

" If thou shouldst bring me back to life. 
More humbled I should be ; 
More wise, more strengthened for the strife, 
More apt to lean on thee. 



Digitized by 



Google 



COURAGE, 105 

" Should death be standing at the gate, 
Thus should I keep my vow ; 
But, Lord, whatever be my fate, 
Oh let me serve thee now." 

How steadfast and confident the courage of the dis- 
ciple manifested here. How much better courage 
kindled from the altar of God, than that born only of 
human strength. 

To a nature retiring and unobtrusive, it is at times 
a great trial to be obliged to go forward and take the 
lead. For instance, Mabel, whose home has been in 
the city, goes with her parents to reside in a rural vil- 
lage. In the church in which she was brought up 
there were many qualified by practice and native fit- 
ness to conduct and take part in, we will say, the 
ladies' prayer-meeting. In the little community in 
which she comes, there are very few. The pastor calls 
and suggests to Mabel that by-and-by, when she shall 
be better acquainted with the young people, she shall 
try to organize a meeting, and to awaken an enthusiasm 
for the cause of missions. He has been desirous to see 
this accomplished, but till now the way has not been plain. 

Poor Mabel! She turns hot and cold and has a 
nervous shiver and a burning flush, at the thought of 
what he asks. She organize ? She awake enthusiasm ? 
She open her mouth or pray in a meeting! Why, she 
has always enjoyed such things, but it was perfectly 
understood that she was one of the silent and sympa- 

Honn with Qlrlt. 



Digitized by 



Google 



io6 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

tlietic ones, who were never to be called upon in public ! 
But what if this be the voice of duty? What if her 
Father in heaven has placed her here for this ? What 
if the Master has allotted this place to her in the ranks? 
If she be truly a child of God, she will accept the task 
with misgivings and tremblings, yet cheerfully, and 
go forward trusting in God. And he who said to 
Moses, " Certainly I will be with thee," will be with 
her, her helper and friend. 

It is often found that a dreaded thing ceases to be 
dreadful when approached and gazed at boldly. Some 
of us have known the apprehension which steals upon 
us in the night, when the moonlight or the soft starlight, 
falling on familiar objects in the room, makes them 
assume strange and unfamiliar shapes. We may lie 
still, victims of absurd and inexplicable fright, or we 
may rise, advance to the chair or the table, where the 
hallucination menaces, and lo ! terror vanishes, and we 
are ready to laugh in our relief. There are people 
who are, their lives long, subject to bondage through 
their fear of the contagion of disease. Fevers and in- 
fections stalk through their dreams, and torment their 
waking hours. They are in a state of chronic alarm 
about diphtheria, small-pox and scarlatina, and should 
one of these diseases become epidemic they are very 
likely to fall a prey to it. The unrest and want of 
poise in their minds leave their bodies defenceless and 
exposed. 



Digitized by 



Google 



COURAGE, 107 

Some people, brave in many things, are timid, per- 
haps, in some one direction. They may be intelli- 
gent about other affairs, and reason about them with 
no flaw in their logic, but there is a pet superstition, 
which keeps them company, and poisons the cup of 
their joy. A looking-glass falls : seven years' trouble 
darts at once into their thought. A journey is to be 
begun on Friday : it must be postponed, for Friday 
is unlucky. Thirteen guests are at the table: alas! 
one will surely die within the year! A dog howls 
under the window, and again discomfort and forebo- 
ding. Persons who have once allowed their minds to 
be fettered in this way, find it hard to break their 
chains. The old myths, hoary with antiquity, have a 
strange vitality and tenacity. Crooned into the infant 
ear by some old nurse, imbibed with mother's milk, 
the superstition holds its own against wisdom and com- 
mon-sense and religion. 

I wish you would be persuaded to let neither of 
these forms of terror dominate you. The fear of dis- 
ease may gready hinder your usefulness, should it 
ever become necessary for you to watch with and care 
for the stricken. Rise to heroism in this special thing, 
and refuse to be cowardly and unwomanly. " I would 
have you without carefulness," said Paul. " Take no 
thought for the morrow," said the Saviour. " Suflicient 
unto the day is the evil thereof" 

" Never cross a bridge until you come to it," con- 



Digitized by 



Google 



io8 HOURS WITH GIRLS, 

denses the homely wit of the popular thought. The 
courage which shall emancipate us from fears of what 
may never befall is a courage within our reach. 

About the other, it is less tangible, and therefore 
more difficult to cope with. Cannons and armed 
arsenals cannot so effectually shut the harbor in from 
attack, as can the thick white sea-mist. But sunlight 
scatters the fog, and the sunlight of a real faith will 
dissipate the fog of superstition. "Believe in the 
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved," not only 
from fatal sin, but from error and blight and unworthy 
fears. 

It sometimes requires courage to recede from a 
wrong position, to beg pardon if we have inadvertently 
or wilfully offended, and so set right a complication 
which has come about through our mistaken planning. 
True courage does not hesitate a moment in such a 
case. Nature resents humility, but in the kingdom of 
grace humility goes before honor. The air in the 
valley of humiliation is wholesome, and the plant 
heartease grows there. 

The courage to avow belief in the Saviour, and to 
confess his name before men, is sometimes wanting, 
and they who excuse themselves from joining the 
church because of this, belong to the army of the 
craven-hearted. Why should any one be afraid or 
ashamed to swear allegiance to the Lord Jesus, to whom 
all glory and honor belong ? 



Digitized by 



Google 



COURAGE. 109 

"Ashamed of Jesus ! that dear friend 

On whom my hopes of heaven depend ! 
No, when I blush, be this my shame, 
That I no more revere his name." 

Various excuses are pleaded, but the true reason 
why the disciple does not own the Master is found in 
cold love, indifferent service, and languid courage. 

Let me urge you, if indeed you have a sweet hope 
that you are his a '^d he is yours, to delay no longer in 
taking his name apon you, before men. Do not fear 
lest you shall prove unfaithful to your profession. Do 
not tremble lest friends shall call you inconsistent, and 
the world survey you with criticism. Do not shrink 
from giving up some idle gayeties and transient grati- 
fications. Surrender yourself wholly to the divine 
Redeemer, and trust him to keep you from dishonor- 
ing his name, to keep you in peace, to finally lead you 
home. Unto you is the promise, " Because thou hast 
kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee 
from the hour of temptation." 

"Behold, I come quickly; hold fast that which 
thou hast, that no man take thy crown." 

Overcoming through the blood of the Lamb, re- 
newing courage daily, by prayer, by perseverance in 
labor, and by communion with those who love God, 
the Christian life will more and more become a song 
of thanksgiving. 



Digitized by 



Google 



no HOURS WITH GIRLS, 

CHAPTER XIV. 
CONVERSION AND CONSECRATION 

What is it to be converted ? It is simply to be 
turned away from sin and worldliness, and toward God 
and heaven. What does consecration imply? Sim- 
ply the surrender of all that we have and all that we 
are to the Lord, and the entire devotion of our lives to 
his service. 

People sometimes experience a difficulty in think- 
ing about coming to Christ, because they have ac- 
quired wrong and mistaken notions on the subject. 
Many have an idea that when the great change in their 
hearts and lives takes place, it will be accompanied by 
signs and wonders. They have read the biographies 
of eminent saints, and they have noticed that some of 
them went through a period of darkness and distress, 
were agonized under a sense of their sinfulness, and 
finally were brought into a state of rapture and joy, 
when Christ revealed himself to their souls. If no 
similar emotional experience is given to them, they fear 
that they have not been truly converted. 

Now the fact is that no two minds are precisely 
alike. There is as much variety in mental characteris- 
tics as in human faces. It is impossible to the quiet, 



Digitized by 



Google 



CONVERSION AND CONSECRA TION 1 1 1 

practical, unimaginative person to enter the Christian 
life with the same feelings, intense, vivid, and exultant, 
which naturally arise in the person of ardent fancy and 
quick poetical nature. One who has pursued a course 
of conscious enmity to all that is holy, or who has wan- 
dered like the prodigal into far-off lands, may feel, on 
returning to his Father in heaven, very differently from 
the child who has always dwelt in an atmosphere of 
Christian love and trust. The children of devout pa- 
rents are frequently so early brought to Christ, that 
they cannot fix upon any date when they left the world 
and gave themselves to him. They have the blessed- 
ness of having been his as far back as they can re- 
member. 

But while the feeling in many cases may be very 
dissimilar, the principle is in every case the same. 
There is but one way of salvation, and that way is by 
the cross of Christ, who gave himself for lost sinners. 
The love that brought him to be a little babe in his 
mother's arms, that influenced him through three -and- 
thirty years to toil and suffer among men, and that 
culminated at last on Calvary in that amazing sacrifice, 
is the love which saves us, if we will accept it. The 
question is not. Will Jesus receive and forgive us, will 
the Father be pleased with us and own us as his chil- 
dren, and will the Holy Spirit abide with us, our Com- 
forter and Friend ? but Are we willing to be saved, are 
we sorry for our sins, and do we desire to lead a new 



Digitized by 



Google 



1 1 2 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

life ? No soul which ever came to Christ penitent and 
believing was ever sent away without a blessing. 

Somebody asks, " But how can I come ? What do 
you mean by coming ?" Simply this : Wherever you 
are, if, conscious of estrangement and guilt, you long 
to return to God's love and service, lift up an earnest 
petition to him, saying, "Just as I am, I throw myself 
at the Saviour's feet. I trust his grace. I cannot atone 
for my own sins, but I do trust in his atonement. 
Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ?" So easy, so 
short, so childlike is coming, that whosoever will may 
come. The very purpose to come is the work of the 
Holy Spirit in your heart. The moment you have 
really done this you are accepted, and you have passed 
from the state of being unconverted to the state of 
being converted. It is necessary to confess your weak- 
ness and sinfulness, and your own inability to save 
yourself. It is equally necessary to believe in the 
strength, the grace, and the compassion of Christ, and 
to venture yourself wholly upon him. Do it once for 
all and for ever. It may be that you will not immedi- 
ately possess the happiness which you hope and long 
for, but never mind. Let your hand seek the hand 
that was pierced for you, and walk straight on in the 
narrow path. Light will come after a while. It will 
come the sooner if you cultivate the habit of looking 
away from self and up to Christ. Study his words as 
they were spoken to his followers when he was on the 



Digitized by 



Google 



CON VERSION AND CONSECRA TION 1 13 

earth. Reflect often on his beauty, and think of him 
as glorified and triumphant He reigns in heaven to- 
day. 

I have often heard people say that there was to 
them a difficulty in thinking of the Lord Jesus as a 
person. They could not realize him as- a living present 
being so thoroughly as they wished to. This seems 
strange to me, for there is no memoir in the annals of 
literature, so minute, so tender, and so complete, as 
the memoir which is given us in the four gospels. 
Perhaps those who have been troubled by this perplex- 
ity, would find it vanishing, like a morning mist, if 
they would just read one of the gospels, that of John 
for instance, constantly and lovingly, praying for light 
and for an understanding heart. 

There are hundreds of persons whom we have 
never seen, with whom we are entirely familiar, and 
who are part and parcel of our daily lives. You can 
recall many historical characters, in remote ages and 
in periods near at hand, concerning whom you have no 
doubt, of whom you have pictures in your mind, and 
whom you would recognize were they by any possibil- 
ity to be raised to life before your eyes. Queen Vic- 
toria is not a myth when her name is mentioned, and 
though you never saw her, and never may do so, you 
have no trouble in investing her with the purple of her 
royal womanhood. Now, try when there flits over 
your heart a shadowy doubt of the personality of our 

8 

Digitized by VnOOglC 



114 HOURS WITH GIRLS, 

Lord, to realize that he is as much a person as your 
father, your brother, your dearest friend; and when 
you pray to him, do away with the thought that your 
prayers are not heard by one who is as real in his in- 
dividuality, as he was in the days of his life upon 
earth. 

Consecration, dear girls, I would have you regard 
as a precious privilege. The reason why some have 
little peace in the divine life, is probably found here : 
that their service is feeble and half-hearted. They love 
their own ease, their own pleasure, and their own low 
ambitions. They do not seek first and constandy the 
Master's wishes and work. They give grudgingly, 
finding it hard to endure self-denial that the poor may 
have the gospel preached to them, caring more for 
luxuries and adornments than for Christ. They have 
not entirely lost their wills in blessed submission to his 
will ; and until they do this, they will not have the full 
measure of satisfaction which is the birthright of all 
who are true disciples. 

Dear young girls, take the words of that sweet 
singer, who so lately went home, for your own. Say 
with Frances Havergal, 

" In full and glad surrender we give ourselves to thee, 
Thine utterly and only and evermore to be. 
O Son of God, who lovest us, we will be thine alone, 
And all we are, and all we have, shall henceforth be 
thine own." 



Digitized by 



Google 



JOINING THE CHURCH. 115 

CHAPTER XV. 

JOINING THE CHURCH. 

There are mistaken people in the world, who think 
they can serve Christ just as well outside the church as 
within its pale. They think that if only their hearts 
are right before God, it matters little whether or not 
men are aware of their position. There are other mis- 
taken people, who refrain from uniting with tlie church 
because they have a very high standard of duty, to 
which they think church -members should conform, and 
they are afraid that they cannot approach their own 
ideal. .Others, again, have doubts as to whether they 
are true disciples. They have not the feeling of assu- 
rance which they would like to have, and, as they ex- 
press it, they are not good enough to make a profes- 
sion of religion. 

Of these different classes, perhap:: the last are the 
most deeply in error ; for it is not by our 6wn merits, 
but only and wholly through Christ our blessed Re- 
deemer, that we are saved. Only as -we trust in him 
and love him have we a right to hope for the mercy of 
God. Those who love Him should not doubt that, 
having begun in them a good work, he will be able to 
carry it on until the end. They should not spend their 



Digitized by 



Google 



ii6 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

time in measuring their attainments and those of oth- 
ers by any human standard, but should look constantly 
unto Jesus. Those who think their piety can grow 
and flourish as well out of the church as in it, are en- 
tertaining an opinion which is not worthy of being held 
by persons of ordinary intelligence. 

First let ijie say to you, if you have any hesitation 
on the subject, that you must not forget that the Lord 
himself was the organizer of the church. The sacra- 
ment of the Last Supper was instituted by him in 
the very shadow of the cross. It pleased him to take 
bread and wine, common food and drink, and make 
them symbols of his dear body broken for sin, and his 
precious blood shed^ for sin's remission. It pleased 
him to lift the common act of partaking of a meal so- 
cially out of a common and into a sacred meaning, so 
that to the end of time, whenever the disciples shall eat 
the bread and taste the wine in remembrance of him, 
they will be showing forth his death until he come. It 
was his plain command that his followers should take 
up the cross and walk in the narrow way. * "Whoso- 
ever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of 
man also confess before the angels of God. But he 
that denieth me before men shall be denied before the 
angels of God." 

It ought to be considered a very sweet privilege to 
be enrolled visibly and individually among the hosts 
of God's people. 



Digitized by 



Google 



JOINING THE CHURCH, 117 

" The Son of God goes forth to war, 
A kingly crown to gain, 
His blood-red banner streams afar ; 
Who follows in his train ?" 

When you remember how many of the noblest, the 
best, and the loveliest of men and women, have been 
in the bands of Christ's servants ; when you look back 
to the early times, and read the heroic list of those 
who died for the truth, and when you look up to the 
heavenly home, and think of the great multitude there 
in white robes, with palms in their hands, is it not a joy 
and an honor that you are permitted to make one in 
so great an army ? When you reflect, too, on the ten- 
der relationship which exists between Christ and his 
people, you find in that an additional reason why you 
should join his church. Take the fifteenth chapter of 
the gospel of St. John, and read it as though it were a 
letter sent from heaven to you personally, to day. 

" If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in 
my love, even as I have kept my Father's command- 
ments, and abide in his love. 

" These things have I spoken unto you, that my 
joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be 
full. 

" This is my commandment. That ye love one an- 
other, as I have loved you. 

" Greater love hath no man than this, that a man 
lay down his life for his friends. 



Digitized by 



Google 



ii8 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

" Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I com- 
mand you." 

So the beautiful verses go on, each shining like a 
dewy pearl threaded on a silver cord. What a de- 
lightful and wonderful thing that we who are talking — 
you, Mary, you, Elsie, in your quiet home-life, in your 
littie place, I in my room where I sit to write these 
words — may be ihe friends of Jesus, and have his love 
abiding with us, a fragrance which will perfume every 
hour of life, a help which will never forsake us, and a 
gladness which will grow ever deeper and truer. Do 
not shut yourselves out from the intimacy of friend- 
ship to which the Lord invites you. Joining the church 
is not essential to our salvation, for that is brought 
about by our being joined to the Lord Jesus Christ. 
But it is essential to our best development in grace, to 
our comfort in Christian life, and to our setting a right 
example and exerting a beneficent influence. 

We receive a great deal of help from pleasant asso- 
ciations. It is easier to do what we ought when tiiose 
around us are in sympathy with us. Rowing up stream 
is hard work. It is hard to walk with the wind beating 
sharp and keen in our faces. But when we are sur- 
rounded by sisters and brothers who desire our im- 
provement, who stimulate us by their kind and affec- 
tionate vigilance, and who care for our happiness, life 
is not difficult and hard. 

Do not rest sah'sffd when you have become a mem- 



Digitized by 



Google 



JOINING THE CHURCH, 119 

ber of the church. Take hold at once of some part of 
Christian work. Can you think of nothing which you 
wish to do? Then pray to be guided. The Lord 
needs you, and there is work which nobody else can 
do for him as you can, and it is waiting for you. 

I hear Louise saying, " If I could find a grand op- 
portunity, I would embrace it ; but I am shut up to a 
narrow sphere of retired living, and there is no chance 
for me." And Sophie, who has been studying mission- 
ary periodicals, thinks that, could she but go to Bur- 
mah or Japan for Jesus' sake, she would go joyfully ; 
but what can she find for her hands in her own little 
village, where the people are all respectable, and where 
there is no room for such effort as she would like to 
make ? 

Let me tell you, girls, that the best foreign mission- 
aries were prepared for their labors by being good 
home missionaries first. A missionary is one sent. 
You may be sent on the Master's errands, though you 
are sent no farther than the mother's invalid chamber, 
than the brother's room which needs arranging and 
dusting, than the nursery where the fretful babe is in 
want of soothing and caressing. I heard, not long ago, 
of an enthusiastic Christian woman, who decided that 
she would go nowhere on business or pleasure without 
saying something for Jesus. But though her motive 
was good, her actions were sometimes strangely mis- 
taken and out of place, and she repelled people, in- 



Digitized by 



Google 



120 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

stead of attracting them. Try rather to live in a Christ- 
like way, than to talk constantly of Christ. Talk, when 
it is natural, spontaneous, the outflow of a loving heart, 
will do good, and the word for Jesiis should never be 
withheld through cowardly fear or chilling indifference. 
Yet the sweetness of love, which makes those around 
you happy, which endures discomfort, and incurs self- 
denial, is the sweetness which wins. Character is built 
slowly. Let your daily life be a series of steps towards 
the building of a sincere and earnest Christian character. 
Do not try to do good in some other woman's way. 
Too many imitate, when they should emulate. You 
may admire your pastor's wife or your Sunday-school 
teacher, and yet if you spend your time and strength 
in merely copying her, you will commit yourself to a 
course which will end in failure. The longer I live, 
the more I realize that one perfect copy, and only one, 
has been set for our imitation, and that copy is Christ 
We cannot fail to grow into his likeness if we are al- 
ways trying to live as he would have us, and if, wher- 
ever we are, we ask ourselves the question, What would 
Jesus have us do ? 



Digitized by 



Google 



THE TEMPERANCE REFORM, 121 

CHAPTER XVI. 
THE TEMPERANCE REFORM. 

Have girls any share in responsibility about the 
great curse of intemperance, which spreads so much 
misery and breaks so many hearts in this land? I 
think they have. I think the temperance reform con- 
cerns everybody, because it comes close to every home. 
Every young woman who has brothers, and every 
young woman whose friends have brothers, has a duty 
to perform with regard to it. No other thing causes 
the wretchedness which is caused by the use of liquor 
as a beverage. It ruins good men and wom^n. It 
destroys refinement and undermines truth. It directly 
tends to poverty. It sends men to prison, and drives 
their wives and children to despair. The liquor traffic 
and the appetite for stimulants sweep their thousands 
of victims into the graves of drunkards, graves unhon- 
ored and unblessed by hope of a happy hereafter. 

I wish I could induce you to take a strong and de- 
cided stand for temperance in two ways. So far as 
you are personally concerned, I would urge you never 
to offer a glass of wine at a social entertainment, never 
to santtion its use at a social festival if you can avoid 
it, and never to act as though its use by others were to 



Digitized by 



Google 



122 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

you a matter of indifference. I would urge you not to 
admit to the circle of your intimate friends young men 
and women who are in the habit of drinking, even in 
moderation. The habit is insidious and grows by in- 
dulgence, and they who to-day take a sip now and 
then, may in two, three, or five years, find themselves 
the slaves of a vice they despise. Girls and women 
possess no charm which can give them immunity from 
peril if they yield to the temptation to tamper with in- 
toxicants. Perhaps from the fact that their occupations 
are more generally in-doors, and their nervous organi- 
zation is finer and more complicated, they are in the 
greater danger. I have known several very sad and 
distressing instances in which fair, delicate, highly-bred 
ladies, beginning under a physician's advice to take 
stimulants during convalescence, or when in a state of 
mental or physical depression, have gone by swift de- 
grees farther and farther on, taking more wine, and 
oftener, till the draught which gave temporary relief 
seemed to become a necessity. At last the humiliating 
and mortifying truth could not be concealed — that these 
beautiful and gifted women had become inebriates. If 
you have a friend who has fallen under the power of 
temptation, I do not counsel you to stand aloof from 
that friend, as though you felt yourself holier and bet- 
ter. On the contrary, try to use your influence to per- 
suade the unfortunate person to forsake the evil way. 
But in forming new associations, in making acquaint • 



Digitized by 



Google 



THE TEMPERANCE REFORM. 123 

ances, and in the whole tenor of life which leads toward 
friendship, be careful not to entangle your lives with 
the lives of those who habitually drink. Many young 
girls suffer their peace and happiness to be wrecked 
through a foolish idea of self-sacrifice. They meet 
men who are brilliant, clever, and fascinating, and who 
pay them the tribute of admiration. They may be 
known to be unprincipled and unscrupulous, and per- 
haps dissipated. But the young women fondly think that 
their love and tenderness will do what other restraints 
have been powerless to effect. " Hugh has been gay, 
poor fellow," says Amy, " but now that he loves me, 
he will shun his old companions and avoid his old 
haunts. If I refuse to listen to his suit, he will perhaps 
be driven to despair and go straight to ruin." Mista- 
ken Amy ! If Hugh's own father and mother and sis- 
ters—if his self-respect and his innate sense of man- 
hood have been too weak to protect him against vice 
and sensuality, do not dream that your little hand will 
stay the flood. For a few brief months of occasional 
intercourse, for a few weeks or months of wedded life, 
you may apparently succeed in your enterprise, but 
yours will be an exceptional case, indeed, if, when the 
novelty wears off and the glamour is faded, your pri- 
vate reform movement does not end in failure. Believe 
me, your womanhood can put itself to nobler uses than 
in mating with a man of infirm moral purpose in the 
hopeless crusade of bolstering him up in integrity. 



Digitized by 



Google 



124 HOURS WITH GIRLS, 

There is one love strong enough to work a radical 
change in the heart of an intemperate man, and one 
only : that is the love of the Son of God. A man con- 
verted through and through, his hand clasping the 
cross, his strength daily renewed by prayer, and his 
confidence in himself replaced by humble dependence 
upon his Master, such a man may and can break the 
fetters of appetite. There is the secret of the true re- 
form which succeeds with some. The paralyzed will 
and the mortified self-respect are then wonderfully in- 
vigorated and encouraged by something strong and 
vital which enters into the soul, cleansing and renew- 
ing it. 

Whenever in a community the young men are 
aware that the young women collectively regard with 
disfavor all who indulge in dissipation and all who par- 
take of liquor in any form or to any extent, drinking 
among young men will become unfashionable. It is 
curious to observe the variation in social tone on this 
topic in different places. I happened not long since to 
read in a leading American newspaper an urgent ap- 
peal to gentlemen not to drink in bar-rooms. The 
writer appeared to take it for granted that gentlemen 
would certainly drink somewhere, and that the offence 
would be venial if confined to homes and friends* 
houses. I am perfectly sure that the women of the 
city in which that editorial was written could put an 
end to the disgraceful state of affairs thus indicated, if 



Digitized by 



Google 



THE TEMPERANCE REFORM, 125 

they would but attempt it bravely and quietly, using 
the potent force which makes woman the arbiter of so- 
cial usage and the creator of social atmosphere. 

What Mrs. Hayes has done for Washington by her 
simple, steadfast, and quiet adherence to her convic- 
tions, each of us can do in our degree in our smaller 
circles. Opportunity defines responsibility. Arrogant 
as the liquor traffic is, and unblushing as are its inroads 
on the laws, it will lose one great element of strength 
when women everywhere unite to oppose it, and when 
the home sentiment from the highest to the lowest 
classes is manifestly and steadily in its opposition. 

There is one way in which a taste for stimulants is 
cultivated, and for which mothers and daughters are 
to blame. Those who use sauces flavored with wine 
or brandy, who infuse their mincemeat with the same, 
or, who prepare tempting fermented cordials, supposed 
to be innocent since they are home-brewed, are minis- 
tering to a diseased appetite. Keep the home cooking 
free from temptation. 

How much harm has been done by some of the 
great novelists, who have given an endorsement to 
table habits of conviviality, by their piquant descrip- 
tions of gay banquets and feasts, it is impossible to tell. 
Yet we may be heartened to effort by the feeling that 
we are moving forward. Thirty or forty years ago, if 
biography is to be trusted, it was not uncommon in 
the best society in Edinburgh, for guests at a dinner to 



Digitized by 



Google 



126 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

drink till they had to be assisted to their homes. 
Fifty years ago, in New York, it was considered im- 
perative to invite the transient visitor to take a glass of 
wine. Nearly everybody asked New Yearns callers to 
take wine. With every succeeding year, less and less 
wine, eggnog, and similar beverages are displayed on 
the tables of hospitable women on New Year's day. 

How much aggressive work for temperance you 
may be able to do, will depend greatly on your cir- 
cumstances. It is by no means every young lady's 
duty to take an active part in temperance meetings, 
or to go to the homes of the wretched and fallen. That 
duty is clearly indicated for some, and as clearly is 
withheld from others. Wherever you are, it is your 
duty to be positive in your views, and to act upon 
them. If you are in company where champagne 
sparkles, let no mistaken notion of courtesy induce 
you to partake of it, and refrain always from offering 
the bright-hued cup of death to others. 

Alcohol has its place in the economy of medicine, 
and as a remedial agent, has at times its uses. It is 
as perilous as strychnine, opium, or gunpowder, and 
we should confine it strictiy to its own sphere, and 
approach it, as we approach other poisons, with care 
and caution. 



Digitized by 



Google 



STUD Y AT HOME. 1 27 

CHAPTER XVII. 

STUDY AT HOME. 

If you live in town where you have access to a 
good Hbrary, you can easily arrange for yourself a 
course of reading or study, to which you can adhere 
in the main, notwithstanding home cares and interrup- 
tions. But most people find that there is a kindling 
quality in contact with other minds, and what I want 
to suggest is, that it is pleasant and profitable for sev- 
eral young people, who are friends, to join together in 
undertaking a course of reading for intellectual culture. 
In places remote from libraries, the difficulties are 
greater, but the old adage usually proves itself true 
that " where there is a will, there is a way." 

I will suppose that in a certain village there are 
seven or eight young women who have left school, 
who are quite fully occupied with housework and 
sewing, and who do not wish to shirk any legitimate 
duty. But they have desires after mental growth. 
They hunger for improvement. They cannot endure 
the thought that they are to lose what they gained 
during schooldays, and to drift entirely out of the cur- 
rent of thought and education. At least, they wish to 
know something of what goes on in the great world of 



Digitized by 



Google 



128 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

mind, and to be able intelligendy to enjoy interesting 
conversation and criticism. 

They will be very much more likely to succeed in 
this endeavor if they combine their forces, than if each 
acts independentiy. Being distant from a library, they 
may form a littie book-club. They must have funds 
of course, and perhaps they have litde money, yet they 
need not be discouraged, for if they are in earnest 
funds will grow. One girl may give the money her 
bees made for her, another will have as her share, the 
price of her eggs or her chickens; and another still, 
will have gathered the berries from her bushes, or the 
grapes from her vines, and saved the littie income thus 
obtained, for the higher uses and purposes of life. 
Few girls there are who do not somehow manage to 
procure ribbons and combs and corsets and feathers 
and furbelows, many of which add nothing whatever 
in beauty, style, or ornament to their costumes. Now, 
acknowledging the drawback of limited means, and 
confessing the small amounts in actual money pos- 
sessed, yet when several people unite their strength 
and so get a nucleus for beginning, it is surprising how 
much their efforts will enable them to do. Books are 
cheap. As compared with other purchasable prod- 
ucts, they are amazingly cheap, for a few well-selected 
volumes represent wealth not to be measured by dol- 
lars and cents. 

Send for the catalogue of some good publishing 



Digitized by 



Google 



STUD Y AT HOME. 1 29 

house, and with only ten dollars in hand, you will be 
surprised at the excellence of the five or six volumes 
you may buy. These should be the property of the club, 
and may be lent from one to another, each retain- 
ing a book two weeks. The club may constitute 
itself a lending library, making a charge of a few cents a 
week for the pleasure of reading a good book, the 
income thus secured being held strictly to the purpose 
of procuring additions to the number of books. 

Whether or not you like this idea of becoming a 
book-owning society, you will find the entering upon 
a course of study together very stinmlating and profit- 
able. It is a wild wintry afternoon. White flakes are 
beginning to fall, and there is the promise of a storm 
before night. But the fire in Caroline's parlor will be 
cosey and warm, and, when the dinner is over, and the 
afternoon dress is donned, one and another young 
woman, well protected against the weather, may be 
seen going fearlessly out towards the place of resort. 
The girls are studying the period of Queen Elizabeth. 
When Elizabeth was reigning in England, what was the 
rest of the world about? Was it, or not, a time of in- 
tense excitement, of change, of restlessness, of heroic 
adventure, of lofty courage, and of revival of many 
activities? Who were the other reigning sovereigns 
of Europe ? What was the condition of affairs in the 
other quarters of the globe? Who were the conspicu- 
ous figures in Elizabeth's time? Conspicuous for what ? 

Hours With CMrlB. -. 



Digitized by 



Google 



130 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

What great writers left their impressions deeply on 
English literature, at this period? The fate of Mary 
Queen of Scots, was it deserved or otherwise ? Who 
was John Knox, and what of his work in Scotiand? 
What of household conveniences, and modes of travel, 
of dress and society in that time ? 

You see plainly that here is enough to occupy a 
set of bright studious girls for a whole winter. The 
hours they spend in such inquiry as this will be fruit- 
ful in solid acquirements, and golden in mental disci- 
pline. But literature is many-sided, and books are like 
the forest ' for multitude. They might, instead of an 
historical period, select a period in the wonderful story 
of missions, or take a country, once dark, and now 
shining in the dawn-light of the gospel. A pastor or 
former teacher will no doubt be happy to give helpful 
hints with regard to the choice of a subject for study. 
Perseverance in a chosen line of reading will repay 
the students in the end, not alone in the additions to 
their stock of knowledge, but in the mental discipline, 
and the power of attention and concentration gained 
in quiet hours. 

I am always sorry for young people who wilt and 
grow dull and bored, as soon as they cease to be ex- 
cited by some gay party, or occupied by some pro- 
jected entertainment. Life is worth little which must 
be for ever fed with artificial stimulants. Resolve 
that for your part you will have resources. Lay 



Digitized by 



Google 



STUD Y AT HOME. 131 

up stores for thought and memory, against the days 
which may come, days of pain, illness, or enforced 
seclusion because of weakness and advancing years. 
Determine that you will be bright and winsome 
companions for your home-friends, when the beauty 
of youth is feded. 



Digitized by 



Google 



132 HOURS WITH GIRLS, 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

COURTESY OF MANNER, 

An amusing story was told several winters ago of 
a rebuke administered by the performers at a drawing- 
room concert in London to the audience, who, inste?id 
of listening to the music, were talking with might and 
main. The leader had suffered annoyance from the 
same cause till his patience was exhausted. So he ar- 
ranged beforehand that on this occasion, in the loudest 
part of the movement, at an understood signal, piano, 
violin, and violoncello, should suddenly cease. They 
did so, to the consternation of the assembly, many of 
whom were engaged in animated conversation, and 
yet were thus beached, in an instant, high and dry 
upon the shore of silence. Clear and loud in the as- 
tonished pause rang out the silvery voice of a lady, 
who exclaimed in the hearing of everybody, *' We al- 
ways fry ours in lard !" 

A similar reproof was once given in an American 
city by Theodore Thomas to an elegant throng of 
ladies and gentlemen gathered at a Philharmonic re- 
hearsal. With a peremptory wave of his baton the 
great leader halted the orchestra, and announced that 



Digitized by 



Google 



COURTESY OF MANNER, 133 

either the music or the talking must stop. Both could 
not proceed at once. 

" Well," says Mattie, " what is parlor-music except 
a cover for conversation ? I never think of devoting 
myself to listening when Herr Von Derdecken or Frau- 
lein Steinbergh, or even one of my friends, like Connie 
White or Albert Bigelow, sits down to the piano." 

That may be, and you are very impolite indeed in 
the matter, though I presume you do not mean to be so. 
Think of it The performer is endeavoring to please 
and gratify you, and you are receiving his effort pre- 
cisely as you would were you to open a book and read 
its pages while he was talking to you. He or she has 
devoted years of earnest and severe toil to the master- 
ing of this accomplishment, by which many are rested, 
helped, and entertained, and you cannot refrain from a 
moment's trifling to attend to the piece which is being 
played for you. Perhaps you do not understand har- 
mony, and have no ear for discords or sweet melodies, 
all being alike to you in your lack of training. Then' 
you are equally inexcusable, for your presumption is 
great in condemning as dull and tedious what you do 
not in the least comprehend. Always, however, in par- 
lors and concert-halls there are those to whom music 
affords a most exquisite enjoyment, and who are pained 
and interrupted by the vicinity of chatterers who dis- 
turb their tranquillity. The underbred thoughtlessness 
of girls who talk of their own affairs or giggle and flirt 



Digitized by 



Google 



134 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

while music is going on, acts upon and annoys the per- 
formers who play and sing and the really cultivated 
people who desire to listen. Pardon a word of re- 
minder on this well-worn theme. 

Courtesy is frequendy ignored in church. In one 
way it is forgotten by those who are habitually a little 
too late in reaching their seats. Did you ever notice 
the degrees of tardiness in a congregation ? Some are 
usually five minutes late, only five, but as they walk 
down the aisle with rustling silks or creaking boots, 
they distract the worship of those who are already 
seated. The voluntary is being played or the opening 
anthem has begun, or the minister is about to pray. 
The advent of these people is an interruption. And, 
besides the rudeness to pastor and fellow-worshippers, 
there is a lack of veneration to God and of respect to 
his house. 

There are other discourtesies in church as marked 
as this of the late arrival there. To fidget, to yawn, to 
turn over the pages of the hymn-book, to whisper to a 
neighbor, and to gaze around you, with frequent and 
obtrusive changes of position, are indicative of ill- 
breeding and insulting to the place and the occasion. 
Even though the sermon fail to interest you, the min- 
ister — first because he is a gentleman, like any other 
gendeman, and next because he is the representative 
of his Master, and clothed upon with authority — is en- 
titled to your polite and constant attention. A lady 



Digitized by 



Google 



COURTESY OF MANNER. 135 

should invariably be so self-controlled that she can 
repress in herself outward manifestations of listlessness 
and languor. 

I am often sorry that the invaluable training in sit- 
ting still and maintaining the attitude of decorum to- 
wards elders and superiors, once a part of every child's 
education, is now missed by many. Manners do not 
come wholly by chance, nor are they entirely to be 
trusted to refined associations, though these greatly 
aid in their acquirement. Sooner or later most of us 
need the discipline of enforced rules, and conventional- 
ities have their uses in the ease and grace they confer, 
the smoothness with which they oil the intercourse of 
society, and the friction from which they save. 

Towards the aged and the feeble, and towards litde 
children and servants, the courteous person is kind and 
deferential. True courtesy implies remembrance of 
the Bible rule, " In honor preferring one another." If 
you wish an example of lofty courtesy, make a study 
of the life of Paul, who always bore himself with simple 
dignity, who never was unequal to the situation, and 
who was loving and pitiful to his friends and to the 
suffering. 

Manner and manners are often confused, or, by in- 
exact people, thought of as being almost identical. Man- 
ner is really the expression of a person's whole char- 
acter, the style of one's thought, and the subtle revela- 
tion of the soul, while manners are more like clothing 



Digitized by 



Google 



136 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

or decorative badges. People sometimes have cere- 
monious manners, while their manner is constrained, 
stiff, and shy. A lady's manner may be brusque, ag- 
gressive, and repellant, so tha;t you are on the defensive 
so soon as you encounter her, yet she may have the 
etiquette of polite society at her fingers' ends, and never 
violate a single one of its arbitrary rules. And a woman 
may be most winning, lovable, and motherly in man- 
ner, and still be quite ignorant of many little points of 
conventional training. 

To acquire a charming manner, girls, I would ad- 
vise you to guard your hearts from impure thoughts, 
and to live much in the good company of the best 
books and the most high-minded people. Truth, ten- 
derness, affection, and unselfish charity, enter into the 
composition of a good, because an engaging and unob- 
trusive manner. Not to think tco highly of self, not to 
be over-sensitive, not to insist too strenuously on re- 
ceiving attention and regard, are the negative qualities 
which the best womanly manner implies. As for the 
positive qualities, they are all wrapped up, as the rose 
in its bud, in one beautiful word — charity, or love. 
The thirteenth chapter of Paul's First Epistie to the 
Corinthians is a complete manual on the subject. 

Manners are the daily product of a thousand influ- 
ences. Manners at the table, in company, at school, 
at home, have nearly everything to do with comfort 
and propriety. There is a word which sums up how 



Digitized by 



Google 



COURTESY OF MANNER, 137 

they are to be acquired. It is this — obedience. Con- 
form to the laws which have been made presumably 
for the general convenience of the world, and conform 
to them willingly. When you are in doubt concerning 
any matter, do not be ashamed to ask advice of those 
who are well informed. If you have made a mistake, 
do not be crushed or needlessly humiliated, but deter- 
mine to do better the next time. Never despise little 
things. Do not consider the acknowledgment of fa- 
vors, the answering of letters, and the attending to tri- 
fling details, as of small importance. It is never right 
to omit saying, " Thank you,** to the person who helps 
you in even the slightest particular. 



Digitized by 



Google 



138 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 



CHAPTER XIX. 
BEING YOURSELF. 

" Maria has been visiting the Crawfords," observed 
Miss Julia, as a young lady who was talking with Win- 
ifred at the gate tripped away, with a very airy bow 
and a sort of dancing step, which was in odd contrast 
with her somewhat substantial figure. " That is Ange- 
lina Crawford's bow and Melicent's walk, and, il you 
notice, she has put on her shawl scarf- wise, just as Flo- 
rilla Crawford always wears hers. You can easily tell 
whom Maria has last seen by noticing her dress and 
demeanor." 

I had occasion to meet Maria several times in the 
week following this remark, and I found it was quite 
embarrassing to become accustomed to her frequent 
changes. She was a very romantic young woman, was 
possessed of a vivid imagination, and almost too facile 
an adaptability to the company with whom she found 
herself She took everybody's color. When she heard 
the views of the Lesters, who were pronounced and 
extreme in their ideas on certain subjects, she sympa- 
thized wholly with them, and assented amiably to their 
opinions, without taking the precaution to think whether 



Digitized by 



Google 



BEING YOURSELF. 139 

they were hers or not. For the hour she sincerely 
adopted them. But leaving the Lesters, and calling 
on the Deans, who were at the opposite pole of thought 
and feeling, Maria threw the Lesters over, declared her- 
self of the same mind as the Deans, and to all intents 
and purposes was a Dean. The difficulty was to dis- 
cover Maria Smith. Not only did she receive impres- 
sions from and reflect the tones of the friends with 
whom she was thrown, but the last book she read influ- 
enced her in the same way. For days together she 
would be the heroine of a story, wearing white dresses 
in cold weather, because the beautiful Lilian in the 
book did so, or curling herself up in window -seats and 
hiding behind curtains, because those were the habits 
of Isabella. Occasionally she developed a walking 
mania, and would go tramping off" over hills and plains 
with thick boots and an alpenstock; and again her 
highest joy in life was to dream idle hours away in a 
hammock. 

Marians greatest defect was want of a settled pur- 
pose, and it arose in a great degree from this fatal 
propensity to copy other people. There are cer- 
tain ways in which it is well to imitate good models. 
The graceful, gracious lady may well be admired by 
the young unformed girl. The teacher is very prop- 
erly the bbject of the pupil's emulation. Daughters 
are praiseworthy when they endeavor to be as mudi 
as possible like their mothers in excellence of princi- 



Digitized by 



Google 



140 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

pie and gendeness of behavior. So far we are right 
in trying to attain to the best that we see in other 
people. But to be wrought upon by every passing 
influence, to attempt inr a gush of enthusiasm for nov- 
elty, to be and act precisely like this and that person 
who has captivated our fancy, is silly and absurd. 

We may, of course, veer to the other extreme. I 
recollect a droll instance of this in a quaint little girl 
whom I once happened to meet. Her name was Jane 
Ann. She sat bolt upright in her chair, knitting away 
on a long blue sock, as if she had been her own grand- 
mother. It was evident that she had seen nothing 
since she left home which compared favorably in her 
mind with home conveniences and adornments. The 
gay sights of Washington, at that time bright with mil- 
itary pageantry, did not please or divert her ; and she 
sat in the hotel window a homesick, forlorn, but brave 
and sturdy little woman, wearing the time away till it 
should please the grown folks who had brought her 
there td carry her back again to the cheery kitchen- 
fire and the ample fields of the homestead farm. Feel- 
ing compassionately towards her, I tried to be enter- 
taining, and after a while called her "Jennie.'* 

** Jane Ann, if you please !" was the instant correc- 
tion, with a snap of the black eyes. 

The little woman meant to be Jane Ann, and no- 
body else. She was typical of a sort of rigid inflexibil- 
ity of temperament, just as Maria is typical of a too 



Digitized by 



Google 



BEING YOURSELF. 141 

fickle mobility ol disposition. The one is as unfortu- 
nate as the other. ' 

Let me tell you why I think every human being 
should try to be the self God meant to make in him 
or her. Let me tell you why you should be yourself, 
and I myself, without the constant endeavor to assume 
some other character. 

The most obvious reason is, that God has an indi- 
vidual work for each of us, and has afforded us each 
our individual preparation. He has done this with his 
children always. It is very instructive to read the 
Bible, with the aim of finding how God made men 
ready to do his will. Moses was educated from his 
infancy, that he might become the deliverer and lawgiver 
of his nation. Sanmel was set, as a littie child, in the 
temple of the Lord. Daniel was specially trained for 
the service the Lord intended him for. 

So, in reading the lives of the good men and 
women of our own day, we see plainly that their steps 
were ordered for them. Had they gone in this or the 
other direction, at some critical period, their whole life 
course would have been changed. God cares for us 
every one, with the supervision and care which a pa- 
rent gives a child. He knows us and calls us by our 
names. He wishes us to fill a certain place, and to be 
surrounded with particular circumstances, which are 
arranged by him ; and we, I speak it reverently, make 
it harder for our Heavenly Father to do his work in 



Digitized by 



Google 



142 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

us, when we are discontented with ourselves, and 
waste our time and talents in trying to be what he never 
meant us for. 

A few days ago, I stood beside the coffin of a dear 
young girl, who had been loved by a great many 
besides her own family. Her name was Irene. Its 
sweet significance, peace, suited her as though it were 
a key or an interpretation. Her face was full of 
sunshine. Her hand clasp was always cordial. Her 
little brothers were brooded over by her, with almost 
motherly care and solicitude. Wherever she went, 
there went happiness, contentment, and serenity. Her 
abounding cheerfulness and radiant health seemed to 
be prophetic of a long and useful life. Sickness and 
death came to the family, and a frailer child was taken 
away. Nobody had fears for Irene, and even when it 
was known that she was in peril, the fever raging, her 
strength breaking, we felt almost sure that she would 
be spared. Twice she rallied, and twice suffered a 
relapse, and at last the white ribbon on the door testi- 
fied to thronging friends that she was no longer here. 
The happy, brave, buoyant, beautiful girl had been 
summoned, through pain and weariness, to the nearer 
presence and the higher service of the Lord she loved ; 
she was an inhabitant now of the heavenly home. 

Thinking of Irene, of her peculiarly bright face and 
earnest manner, of her fearless Christian life, and her 
uniform sunny-heartedness, I have been led to see that 



Digitized by 



Google 



BEING YOURSELF, 143 

personality is itself a gift, not to be tampered with. One 
by one we are brought into the kingdom, not in masses. 
One by one, our Shepherd guides us through the world. 
One by one, he deals with us. One by one, when the 
time comes, he gathers us to himself, and we are satis- 
fied in the fulness of joy. A life which is frittered away 
in the attempt to imitate other imperfect lives is like 
water outpoured on the ground. The life which is 
filled with doing good, must first be good; and the 
source of goodness is the blessed Jesus, who is alone 
our perfect example. 



Digitized by 



Google 



144 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE CARE OF THE SICK. 

Sooner or later most women have the care of the 
sick laid upon them as a sacred duty. To care suc- 
cessfully for the sick is no slight undertaking. To be 
a good nurse, is to be in one sense a very accomplished 
woman. A cheerful disposition, a patient temper, a 
sufficiency of physical vigor, and a willingness to 
obey the attending physician implicitly, are essential 
in assuming the responsibility of managing a sick- 
room. 

A great artist was once asked with what he mixed 
his colors. Gazing keenly at the young aspirant who 
made the inquiry, he answered, ** With brains, sir." 
If you wish to be a good nurse, you must have brains. 
Kind feelings, sympathy for suffering, desires to relieve 
pain, are all very well, but they are not enough. A cool 
firm hand, a steady eye, a light step, an arm that knows 
how to lift an aching head and adjust a rumpled pillow, 
and deftness in changing linen, as well as gentleness in 
speaking to a patient, are necessary. 

Floating through most girls' heads is an ideal of 
nursing, which is highly poetical and perfectly unprac- 



Digitized by 



Google 



THE CARE OF THE SICK, 145 

tical. Cologne, flowers, soft ethereal robes, and grate- 
ful invalids, compose this vision of the chamber of 
illness, with Rose or Rebecca the guardian and centre 
of the paradise. 

In fact, a long illness is a campaign, a succession of 
stubbornly -contested batties. Invalids are often fretful 
and impatient ; not so amiable as when in health, and 
as unreasonable and petulant as children. Sometimes 
they are more like naughty children, than like grown- 
up men and women. Those who are about them must 
not forget that the capricious, whimsical, and complain- 
ing moods are the effect of tangled and jarring nerves 
of feebleness and pain, and that it is very unkind and 
foolish to resent them in the like manner. 

It is incomprehensible to the well, who have had 
no personal experience of suffering, that such slight 
things can disturb and annoy the sick. Once when I 
was quite young, I had charge of a dear sister who 
was very ill indeed. Thinking her asleep, I sat down 
by a desk in her chamber, to write some letters. Pres- 
ently something like a moan of despair reached my 
ears from her bed. "What is it?" I hastened to 
ask. "O M.,'* she answered, "The scratching of 
your pen is putting me in agony." A friend told me 
that, during convalescence after a fever, he was nearly 
distracted by seeing his nurse sitting near him with 
sewing in her hand. The regularly-recurring move- 
ment of the needle and thread, and the whirring of the 
noui-8 With airi«. 10 



Digitized by 



Google 



146 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

thread through the cloth, caused his super-sensitive 
nerves acute misery. 

Whispering and conversing in studiously low tones, 
as though there were something to be kept from the 
patient's knowledge, are practices to be avoided. If it 
is necessary to talk, let the talk be carried on in a low 
but natural tone of voice, so that no suspicion of secrecy 
can be awakened. 

A good nurse pays strict attention to the doctor's 
orders, and obeys them implicitly. If the case is criti- 
cal, and there is danger of forgetting or misunderstand- 
ing any part of his directions, she writes them down, or 
requests him to do so. The mistake of a few drops in 
administering a remedy, or the substituting of one 
medicine for another, might cause the loss of a life, 
which might otherwise be saved. The good nurse 
never underrates her responsibility, yet never exag- 
gerates it so that the thought of it makes her incompe- 
tent to the performance of its duties. While she is 
careful to do precisely what the doctor tells her to do, 
she must not be oblivious to the fact that the doctor 
cannot be at hand the whole of the time, and emergen- 
cies may arise when she must depend on her own 
judgment, and act with promptness. 

Sometimes friends who call tell of treatment which 
has succeeded almost miraculously in their opinion in 
other cases. But were one to listen to all the volun- 
teer physicians who recommend this and that nostrum, 



Digitized by 



Google 



THE CARE OF THE SICK, 147 

the mind would become bewildered, and the patient 
would suffer. It is best, if one have a physician, to be 
guided by him only and entirely ; and certainly nothing 
should be done, and no medicine given, without his 
permission and advice, while he remains as the medi- 
cal attendant. 

There are some simple things which every nurse 
should know; as, for instance, that a mustard -plaster 
on the pit of the stomach will put an arrest upon obsti- 
nate vomiting ; that a hot foot-bath will often equalize 
the circulation, and insure pleasant and refreshing 
sleep ; that a bran -bag heated and laid upon an aching 
part is often potential in soothing pain ; £lnd that mus- 
tard mixed with white of ^%% or molasses will not blis- 
ter the most sensitive skin. 

Your dress when you are caring for an invalid, 
should be made of a soft material which will not rustie 
or creak. Stiffly starched gowns are inadmissible on 
this account. Shoes should not squeak. The manner 
of moving around should be gentle and unhurried. 
For night-watching a loose flannel wrapper is invalua- 
ble. The longest and chilliest portion of the day is 
from II p. M. to 3 A. M. There is then, even in sum- 
mer, a creeping, shivering cold about the air, and 
the vital powers are at their lowest. It is ebb- 
tide for sick and well, and between those hours 
the largest number of the race die. " Going at the 
turn of the night," says the aged nurse who has 



Digitized by 



Google 



148 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

set by many deathbeds, and often the words are 
proved true. 

Sitting in an easy -chair, listening to the feeble, 
fluctuating breath, the nur<f? must be careful that she 
does not herself become chilled. She should have a 
thick shawl for herself to wear, if she feels the need of 
it; have it by her, so that she is not compelled to 
tiptoe around the room, or open bureau -drawers and 
closet-doors to find it. Her senses must be on the 
alert, for it is the elixir of life to her patient to have a 
good night. When nourishment is to be given, it 
must be arranged either in the room, or in one adjoin- 
ing, before the household have retired, so that the sick 
person be not left alone. 

In extreme illness there should be two watchers, 
one to relieve the other, and the fire should not be 
suffered to go out in the kitchen range. 

Do not suffer vials, glasses, and saucers to accu- 
mulate, littering tables and crowding the mantelpiece. 
Keep everything about the room as neat and dainty 
as possible, and see that the ventilation is not neglected. 

Meals are the events of the day, particularly to a 
convalescent. They should be prepared skilfully, and 
by themselves, and not subtracted from the ordinary 
breakfasts and dinners of the family. They should 
be served with great nicety, on the cleanest silver, 
with the finest linen, so that the tray looks like a 
picture. 



Digitized by 



Google 



THE CARE OF THE SICK, 149 

• 

Let the quality be excellent, but the quantity 
offered at once small, for nothing more certainly repels 
a delicate palate than that which borders on grossness 
or coarseness. Do not annoy an invalid by inquiries 
whether this or that will be agreeable to him or her, 
but let the meals come in the form of pleasant sur- 
prises. Still, when a desire is expressed, try as soon 
as possible to gratify it. Nature often suggests what 
is healing and helpful. 

Be cheery, confident, bright and hopeful in your 
own manner, as well as tender and compassionate. 
Guard against a constant influx of visitors into the 
room of one who is very ill. Friends are kind in 
coming often with assiduous and cordial sympathy, to 
ask for those who are sick, and offer attention. It is 
much when we are in trouble, to be assured that we 
are environed by loving hearts, and that prayers are 
ascending for us in our sadness and anxiety. But a 
sick-room must be free from excitement, and no fear 
of giving offence and no mistaken sense of social duty 
should interfere with this. 

The first obligation and the first consideration is 
the patient. Even in convalescence a judicious care 
must be exercised in the matter of receiving visitors, 
not allowing them to stay too long, nor to tax the 
slender stock of renewed health by undue conversa- 
tion. 

The nurse must not ignore for herself the need of 



Digitized by 



Google 



ISO HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

fresh air, repose, and food. The better her own phys- 
ical condition, the better will she be able to care for 
the one who is suffering*. Common sense, tact, amia- 
bility, obedience to orders, attention to details, and 
over all, trust in God, are the essential characteristics 
of a good nurse. 



Digitized by 



Google 



ECONOMY AND EXTRA VAGANCE. 151 

CHAPTER XXI. 

ECONOMY AND EXTRA VAGANCE, 

Economy, strictly speaking, is good management, 
the fine and skilful balancing of ways and means, and 
the utilizing of resources. Extravagance is wandering 
beyond limitations, losing your substance without a 
proportionate gain, and spending more than your in- 
come justifies you in doing. Both terms, as applied to 
persons, are elastic and not arbitrary. It may be ex- 
travagant for Julia to do what is the wisest economy 
when done by Jane. Lottie may be as foolish and 
short-sighted in her desire to save as Ada is childish 
and frivolous in hers to spend. We cannot lay down 
a rule, or set a measure for others' frugality, because 
until we precisely know what an income may be, we 
have no right to criticise an outgo. In this regard the 
Master's rule is imperative, ** Judge not, that ye be 
not judged; for with what measure ye mete, it shall 
be meted unto you." 

It is noble to be thoughtfully economical, but igno- 
ble to be penurious and scrimping simply from the 
passion of hoarding. The common sense of the world 
calls the man who hoards a miser, a name of force, 
concentratinq^ a meaning of gloom and wretchedness. 



Digitized by 



Google 



152 HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

The wealthiest and the poorest woman may alike econ- 
omize, each showing in her nice and unerring appre- 
ciation of the situation, her equality to its demands, 
and her delicate tact and self-poise, that she under- 
stands and controls her resources. Indeed without 
proper economy, liberal generosity is often impossible, 
even to people who are commonly supposed to be far 
above want or anxiety. 

One of the most important things for girls to 
acquire, is some practical knowledge of business. 
Many women are as ignorant all their lives as littie 
children of the most ordinary technicalities and for- 
malities of business. They do not know anything 
about investments, how interest is accumulated, legal 
rates of interest, or wise disposal of funds. If left by 
the death of their masculine protectors in the charge 
of an estate, they fall an easy prey to unscrupulous 
men, and are defrauded of their rights. While you 
are still a girl at home, set yourself to learning some- 
thing, in a practical way, of these essential things.' 
Persuade your parents to give you a monthly allow- 
ance, or if this be inconvenient, at least to let you do 
your own shopping. Learn what goods to buy, and 
something of their approximate value. Go to the 
market for your mother, and find out how to discrim- 
inate between the crisp freshness and fine bloom of 
vegetables and fruit when in excellent condition, and 
the wilted staleness of the same when unfit for use. 



Digitized by 



Google 



ECO NO M Y A ND EXTRA VA GANCE. 1 53 

Learn how to select a piece of beef or mutton, and be 
able to direct the butcher what to cut for you, instead 
of airily suggesting to him that you would like "a 
good roast," or ** a tender steak." Learn how to use 
fragments to advantage, that no waste may undermine 
you and prevent your success in your undertakings. 

Of course you cannot learn this all at once. Good 
housekeeping is a science, and Hke other sciences it 
requires an apprenticeship before it is mastered. Far 
too many women undertake the cares of home before 
they have any training for the profession, and so they 
go through trials and tribulations which are as real 
and as wearing, as they are petty and vexatious. Be- 
gin by studying in your mother's kitchen, which you 
may depend will be better for you than the very best 
cooking-school, and learn the how and why of the 
every day operations which are proceeding there. 
When you are given the care of any part of the house, 
whether your own chamber, the family sitting-room, 
or the parlor, care for it thoroughly. Suffer no neglect 
ill the departments under your eye. Whatever you do 
yourself, do thoroughly; and whatever is done for 
you, supervise it in such a manner that your subordi- 
nates will see that you understand their work, and 
know what ought to be its results. Do not be above 
attention to details; even apparently trifling minutiae 
have their part in making the comfort of a pleasant 
home. 



Hours witU Gil*. 



Digitized by 



Google 



154 HOURS WITH GIRLS, 

Every woman should keep an account of her ex- 
penditure. The fact that you put down what you 
spend, in black and white, is a check on reckless 
spending. Extravagance buys what it happens to 
fancy in passing through a store or on the street; 
economy decides whether what it buys will be pleasing 
for an hour only, or for many days and weeks. Ex- 
travagance purchases perishable finery, and cheap im- 
itations of expensive fabrics ; economy waits till it can 
procure a good article, and then carries it home, and 
takes a legitimate pride in it. 

Read the thirty-first chapter of Proverbs, and there 
you will see the exact representation of the woman 
who is an economist, as opposed to the woman who 
lives only for the present moment. 

" She looketh well to the ways of her household, 
and eateth not the bread of idleness. 

'* She stretcheth out her hand to the poor, yea, she 
reacheth forth her hands to the needy. 

"Strength and honor are' her clothing, and she 
shall rejoice in time to come/* 



Digitized by 



Google 



ONE THING AT A TIME. 155 

CHAPTER XXII. 
ONE THING AT A TIME. 

The atmosphere of our American life is sharp and 
bracing. We are nervous, quick, eager, and ardent. 
Most of us are in a hurry, and few of us are not nearly 
always busy. The father must hasten to his business, 
the mother has» the sewing to do for all the restless 
little ones, the schoolgirl has her crowding studies, and 
the young lady her numerous engagements. So it 
comes to pass that we do not often have the leisure we 
need for quiet thinking. We cannot say with the 
Psalmist, " How love I thy law : it is my meditation 
all the day," for in fact we do not meditate. That 
process implies solitude, or at least some relief from 
incessant activity and constant conversation. 

No soul ripens that has no time for thought, for 
communion with the Lord, for learning his will in the 
secret, silent places. 

" Mine be the reverent, listening love, 
That waits all day on thee," 

exclaims a sweet and' tender poet. 

" Calm me, my God, and keep me calm, 
Soft resting on thy breast ; 
Soothe me with holy hymn and psalm, 
And give my spirit rest," 



Digitized by 



Google 



IS6 HOURS WITH GIRLS, 

is the heart's cry of Bonar, whose sweet harp has ever 
been tuned to heavenly minstrelsy. 

Dear girls, be contented to do what you can. We 
are often wearied with the sum of the day's duties. 
But the weariness which antedates them is sometimes 
equal to that which follows after they are accomplished. 
Nothing wears out a human life like worry, a rust 
which eats into all contentment, and a friction which 
makes continual discord. One by one the moments 
come ; one by one the duties. Doing one thing at a 
time, and trusting that God will give time and strength 
for every obligation, you will not feel burdened and 
weighted, but will go through life buoyantiy, as though 
you had the wings of a bird. 

" He walks as in the presence of God," says Jeremy 
Taylor, ** that converses with him in frequent prayer 
and frequent communion, that runs to him in all his 
necessities, that asks counsel of him in all his doubt- 
ings, that opens all his wants to him, that weeps before 
him for his sins, that asks remedy and support for his 
weakness, that fears him as a Judge, reverences him as 
a Lord, obeys him as a Father, and loves him as a 
Patron." 

It is the sweet peculiarity of a truly pious heart that 
it can love and serve the King while cumbered with 
many cares. You have perhaps read the beautiful legend 
of Francesca. Tradition says that she was a noble lady 
of Rome, who, amid the splendors of court life and the 



Digitized by 



Google 



ONE THING AT A TIME. 157 

pageantry of a lofty station, preserved the simplicity of 
that consecration which loves to sit at the feet of the 
Lord. Every day at certain periods she retired to her 
oratory, there to engage in exercises of devotion ; but 
if called away, as she often was, she went cheerfully, 
saying that " a wife and mother, when called upon, 
must quit her God at the altar, and find him in her 
household affairs." 

Alas! too often we do not, like Francesca, make 
the endeavor to have stated times for thought and 
prayer. So many voices call us, so many attractions 
divert us. that we have no time for that devout medi- 
tation which would help us heavenward. 

** This one thing I do," must be the predominant 
feeling of a life which is powerful and influential in the 
best sense. Try, no matter how busy you may be, 
no matter how manifold your interruptions, to set be- 
fore you the thought, as a daily inspiration, that you 
belong to Christ, and that his will must be your first 
consideration. Ask him every day to make plain to 
you the meaning of his dealings with you. Desire to 
know the mind of Jesus. Though, Hke Martha, you 
must be occupied with the preparation of the cham- 
bers and the dining-hall, like Mary, sit still in the 
house at times, and let the blessing of .the Lord fill 
your spirit, so that he shall himself say that you have 
chosen the good part which shall not be taken away. 



Digitized by 



Google 



158 ^ HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

CHAPTER XXIII. 
THE IDEAL GIRL. 

The ideal girl ! What shall be her characteristics? 
In what colors shall we paint her ? 

First, she must have health and vigor of body. She 
will set before herself a high physical standard, and try 
to attain to it. Good digestion, good food, fresh air, 
bathing, exercise, plenty of sleep, and cheerful temper- 
ament, are factors in producing perfect health. The 
young girl who is wearied with a short walk, who sits 
up very late, and lies in bed correspondingly in the 
morning, who screams with nervous terror at a mouse 
or faints at a caterpillar's touch, who cannot listen to 
the recital of a painful story, or control herself in the 
presence of sudden fright or calamity, is lacking in 
that elasticity of the bodily life which alone makes the 
highest soul -life possible. 

Our minds and bodies are co-partners. They are 
inter-dependent. A thousand subtle chords vibrate 
from one to the other. At one time a sort of fine-lady 
ideal was held up before girls, and they wished to be 
fragile and willowy, pale and delicate-looking ; think- 
ing that thus they would be spiritual and shadowy, and 
respond more sensitively to all the intellectual influ- 



Digitized by 



Google 



THE IDEAL GIRL, 159 

ences which might come to them. This notion is now 
banished from books and thoughts. To-day the girl 
that all are praising is the girl who can ride on horse- 
back for many a swift, delightful mile without fatigue, 
who can propel a boat with graceful motion of the oars 
across the silver waves, who can swim, skate, play 
lawn tennis, and engage in various athletic exercises 
naturally and gayly. She can eat a bit of good beef- 
steak, she wears stout shoes, she is not bound tightly 
in a lung-compressing corsage, and she has the cool, 
firm hand, the bright eyes, the clear complexion, and 
the light- heartedness which come of a body unclogged 
in its machinery by any weight of pain or feebleness. 

The ideal girl, in the second place, is a good house- 
keeper. 

She will learn how to order her serv^ants, or how to 
do her work without them, how to make a sweet, nu- 
tritious loaf of bread, to manage a range, to make a 
bed, to purchase supplies, to avoid waste, and to make 
home pleasant and charming and full of gracious and 
inviting hospitality. She will have a place for every- 
thing and everything in its place ; but hers will not be 
that painful and rigid order which is distressed and 
distressing, which makes her unhappy if it be for an 
instant infringed, and which gives to the home the air 
of a prison. Good housekeepers are good home-ma- 
kers, and the ideal girl will scatter sunshine and beauty 
around her path day by day. She will find twne to set 



Digitized by 



Google 



i6o HOURS WITH GIRLS. 

a flower beside her brother's plate at breakfast, to mend 
her littie sister's broken doll, and help her little friend 
with the puzzle of his problem in algebra, and her fa- 
ther will discover in her the joy of his days and the 
ornament of his household. 

Thirdly, the ideal girl is self-reliant. By no means 
pushing, forward, or aggressive, but able to take 
care of herself, and armored in modest courage. Not 
long ago a young friend of mine was sent with a party 
of people to England to study a difficult branch of art. 
" Were you not afraid to let Alice go so far away, when 
she must depend so much on herself for guidance?" 
was asked of one of her relatives. ** Not at all," was 
the reply. "Alice is a responsible person. I would 
trust her anywhere." Yet as self-reliance may degen- 
erate into arrogant and impertinent self-assertion, and 
as courage may become bravado, the ideal girl needs 
to rest for support always on a Divine helper. 

She must therefore, fourthly, be a Christian. Wom- 
an owes everything to Christ. In lands where the Bible 
is not the rule of life she is either a slave or a toy, a 
drudge or a plaything, and always degraded, treated 
as an inferior, and kept secluded, idle, and under sur- 
veillance. It is only where the cross is uplifted and 
the Saviour followed that she takes her position as 
queen of the race. The sacred books of false religions 
speak of her slightingly and with contempt. It is only 
the Bible which holds her up in honor and reverence. 



Digitized by 



Google 



THE IDEAL GIRL. \t\ 

which assigns to her the highest style of work, and ex- 
pects of her the highest style of devotion. There can 
be no greater ingratitude possible to a woman in a 
Christian land than to withhold her allegiance from the 
Lord who bought her with his precious blood. 

The earlier in life this question of service is rightly 
decided, the sooner will peace and beauty adorn the 
brow of her who is a daughter of God. 

The ideal girl will be open to conviction. She will 
not harden nor crystallize at once into a certain mould, 
nor stay always in one narrow rut, nor revolve for ever 
in one groove. So many avenues are open to knowl- 
edge, so many new inventions and discoveries are all 
the time cushioning the places which used to be rough, 
and bringing remote points near, that nobody can afford 
to stand still. Firm in matters of principle, but recep- 
tive and responsive so far as the affairs of life are con- 
cerned, the girl of whom we are talking will be sympa- 
thetic with the reform movements of the world, inter- 
ested in missionary enterprises, and self-denying that 
Christ's kingdom may come in the hearts of men. 

Such a girl will possess mental culture. Not stop- 
ping at the point where she was when she left school, 
nor satisfied with having learned the alphabet of cer- 
tain studies, she will at least keep in view the best liter- 
ature, and read poetry, history, and biography, so that 
she will become more and more a delightful compan- 
ion. She will not fear to express her thoughts in con- 

Hoan witb Ofrlg. , • 

Digitized by VnOOglC 



i62 HOUR^ WITH GIRLS. 

versation, nor will she dread to say a word for Jesus 
when the opportunity comes. And it will be her aim, 
wherever she is, to help others. That is a poor life and 
a restricted culture which gets, but does not give. Be- 
stowal is the highest and the dearest pleasure a human 
being can know, because as we impart we are like to 
our Heavenly Father who is always sending blessings 
in lavish measure to those who are in want. 

" To do good and to communicate forget not." 

" Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving 
the Lord." 

" Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with 
good." 

These are mottoes for a lifetime. We commend 
them to the ideal girl. 



Digitized by 



Google 



Digitized by 



Google 



Digitized by 



Google 



Digitized by 



Google 



■ ♦^ 



HO 






f ( 9. 

3-- 



D'4 



t* 






^'^ 






;) ^ OigitizedbyGq!©gle 





?-iir/ 



m y* 







^-^itized by Google 



/ 



