Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women Part 6

It a.s.sumes a religious nature. It is baptized at the fountain of religion. And instead of glooming life, it because it is the power of love. "G.o.d is love." It is simple as the story of love in the human heart. "The wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein." All can easily learn how to love G.o.d. Ask the Saviour, and he will say, "Love thy Father." This is the burden of the glorious sermon of His life. If we love the Father, it must be in Christ. He has shown us the Father.

Through no other name under heaven is the Father given. By no other can we come to the Father, for no other has shown him. Christ is the only way open. How simple, how beautiful--"Love thy Father, and thou shalt be saved"--saved from darkness and sin!

Christ is the same as G.o.d speaking to us; it is G.o.d through Christ saying, "Love me, and thou shalt be blest." It is as though a good father said to his child, "Love me, and thou shalt be a good and happy child." The child that loves the Father will obey the Father's voice of wisdom, and be good as he is great. Love of the parent is the seed of virtue. Love of G.o.d is the seed of religion. It is full of grat.i.tude, humility, meekness; it is self-sacrificing, forbearing, merciful; burdened with the sweet spirit of forgiveness. The love of G.o.d is the central love sending out its influence through the whole heart and life.

Who loves G.o.d is saved from hatred, impiety, from all intentional wrong.

His heart is made the receptacle of a principle of eternal love, and hence of "eternal life." 'This love molds and modifies the character; checks the impulses; sways the pa.s.sions; subdues enmity; elevates the affections; gives the ruling loves to truth, to heaven, makes it more cheerful and bright. It sweetens the whole heart and sheds a moral and affectionate influence through the whole mind.

Similar to this love of parents, and growing out of it, should be our love to G.o.d. Him we should regard as our parent. As such we should always think of Him. In all our works, and walks, and joys He should be present in our minds as our Father. Sweet shall be our thoughts of Him.

Cheerfully should we meditate upon His wonderful works and ways. Gladly should our hearts praise Him and our souls commune with him. His commands should inspire us with holy delight. All our life should be made radiant with the inspiring thoughts of our Father. His matchless love and marvelous wisdom should make us feel like little children, happily yet adoringly and gratefully receiving the gifts of parental goodness. With such a love as this growing in our hearts and shining in our lives, how good and happy must we be! And yet this is religion. Love thy Father in heaven, is the full command. All else grows out of this.

We can not love our fellows unless we love our Father. This is the sum of all Christ's teachings. He gave us the Father. "Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us." Before Christ, the Father was not known. G.o.d had only partially revealed himself. The glory of the full revelation was reserved for the immortal and immaculate Son. To know or love the Father is eternal life. This is the religion of the Saviour--this the religion of redemption. Salvation is in it. It is the power of G.o.d to G.o.d; gives its sanction to virtue; adorns the mind with the graces of G.o.dliness; sweetens the heart with amenities of goodness, and dignifies the soul with a spiritual a.s.similation to the Father. Man thus becomes a spiritual child of G.o.d. He is by a nature a natural child, and he is thus by grace or love made a spiritual child. Under the power of this love the world a.s.sumes a new aspect; it becomes a secondary object, good in its place, but only a means of spiritual improvement. Life becomes sublime in its great ends and eternal results. The soul of man becomes, at least in prospect, a glorious and eternal thing, often darkened by error and polluted by sin, but the object of G.o.d's love and care and the Redeemer's solicitude, progressively unfolding its powers and putting on its beauties under the sunshine of the All-seeing eye. And the race of men become the children of the great and loving Father, whose care and smiles no figures shall number, no ages wear out. This is the religion we believe the Saviour inculcated among men, which was the power of G.o.d unto salvation, the central and all-powerful idea of which is love. This is the religion in which thousands are this day rejoicing and living lives which are the brightest ornaments of humanity. And this is the religion which we offer to our youthful friends as the only cure for sin-sick humanity--the only safe guide through life--the only hope and strength of youth, manhood, and old age. We have not a separate religion for youth, nor a distinct religious life for them to live different from the old. It is the beauty of true religion, as of true love, that it lasts through all seasons. It is to grow by, live by, and die by; and, what is more, to rise through endless ages by. We understand this to be an eternal religion. Who becomes truly religious here, learns so much of heaven, walks so far in the celestial road. A truthful, religious life is the first step _in_ heaven, not _to_ heaven. Christ calls it the kingdom of heaven. Without the principles of religious love no woman's character is perfect, or so perfect as it may be. However learned, refined, or cultured she may be by art and society, if her soul is not baptized in this religious love, this love of the Father, she lacks the most essential beauty of spiritual womanhood. If she is not grateful to G.o.d, not in love with his glorious perfections, she is yet low and worldly. Her soul is bound in the chains of sense. It is this religion which adds the finishing touch of excellency to woman's character. It is this which makes her divine. In her best estate she is only earthly till this has wrought its redeeming work within her. To be blessed as she may be to make her life good and spiritually grand, she should begin early this devotion to the Father. Her heart should in early youth turn its face to its G.o.d and look up in sweet and grateful adoration. Woman's heart is the natural shrine of religion; and this shrine should be dedicated while she is young. In cheerful confidence she should give her soul to her Father in heaven. The earlier she does it, the truer and happier will be her life. It is a sad mistake that religion is depressing and saddening to youth. "It is the soul's calm sunshine and the heartfelt joy." It is good for youth as for old age--as good to rejoice as to mourn by. It is as much for sunshine as for shade. He who has the most of it is the lightest-hearted man.

It is as fitting for the marriage altar as for the burial scene. It is calculated as much to elevate and gladden the cheerful heart as to relieve and bless the sorrowful one. Woman in all her relations has an especial need of religion to sustain her. Her pathway is beset with trials. She loves and must love her friends. These, one after another, are separated from her by the customs or accidents of society, or the stern hand of death; sickness and misfortune must come upon her. Her soul is sensitive, and she feels keenly the severing of love's dearest ties. Nowhere else can she find a balm for her aching heart but in the bosom of the Father. If her heart is spiritualized by a holy religious love, there will come to her ministering spirits in the hopes and joys of religion which will bring relief.

Oh, if I could impress on the young female mind the importance of this subject, I should do the world a benefit we could not estimate. Think of a woman all through life shedding about her the genial influence of true religion. From early youth to latest age she is an evangel of peace and love. Her steps are marked with deeds of charity; her life is radiant with goodness. She loves her Father, and, loving him, she loves his children; and, loving them, both her and her heart grow large and her soul strong and beautiful. Her life is a song of praise. Men love to do her secret homage, and in many a heart she is surnamed "angel."

Why should any woman think to live without religion? Oh, how sad is her life without it--how dark her death! It is only in religious love that the future becomes bright, and hope changes to cheerful faith. I have presented woman's religious duty in a simple form of love to G.o.d. I have not time to speak of its detail, nor the means of cultivating this love and growing in the Divine grace; these are given in the sublime yet simple words of Jesus of Nazareth. To him I refer you for light to guide you.

I wish to speak a little of an objection that often comes up to the view of the subject I have taken. It is this: "How can we love a being we have not seen? a Father we have not known? a G.o.d we can not comprehend?"

The objection is a strong one in many minds, and for such I will show how it looks to me.

Our daily experience tells us that we can love beings we have never seen. I doubt not that every American loves Washington. His name is dear to us all. His character and life are our boast and admiration. Not more should we love him if we had seen him and known him well. It is his _character_ that we have and not his person. His character is as clear and glorious to us as it was to his compeers. It thrills us as delightfully and moves upon us as powerfully as it did upon them. It is a glory hung around the name of America to which the world looks with a reverent and admiring joy. To tell me that I can not love Washington would be to rob me of the highest pride I feel in my country. I love him for what he was in the day of his earthly glory, the man of all majesty, the pride of all nations. I love him for what he did, for the life of spotless virtue and magnificent wisdom and goodness. He lived for the good of his country and the world. I love him for the tall angel of light that he now is, and the celestial richness of the glory that streams from his brow. I know I love him, and no philosophy or skepticism can cheat me out of that love.

I could name a hundred characters that have lived in the past and now live in heaven that I know I love in the same way. I love them as really as I do my personal friends, and love them in proportion to the greatness and goodness I see in them. I may say the same of many living men and women. Speaking from my own experience, I should say that I can love goodness, worth, all that is lovable in character as well as in a being that I have not seen as one that I have. I have known of people who have an earthly father living that they have never seen, and whom they love with a deep and rich fervency of affection. I have known of children whom poverty or accident has separated in infancy from their mother, and who cherished for that unknown, far-off maternal friend a sacred and deathless love. They have meditated hours, days, and weeks on the sad separation and the sweet, holy bosom from which they drew the breath of life. In well-formed minds this love grows up with their growth and strengthens with their strength. The idea of parentage awakens love in the heart. The relation is so near and dear it can not be otherwise in good and cultured minds. Then we can love a father whom we have not seen. We all know that the idea of G.o.d is a spontaneity in the human mind. Though G.o.d may be incomprehensible and his ways past finding out, he is still so much within and around us that we can not keep the thoughts of him out of our minds. We know, too, that thousands do love Him with a deathless love who can comprehend him no better than we. We may infer from this that we can love Him also.

But when we think of His character, its infinite loveliness, its unfathomable depth of love, and wisdom, and holiness, it seems to me that the impossibility is in not loving him. How can we help loving him?

Add to this that He is our Father, out of the depth of whose being we were born, and that he loves us with an unspeakable and eternal love, and the attraction to love him becomes still stronger. Then think how much He has done for us; how he has given us our parents and friends, and all the dear and delightful objects of life, thought, and hope; and more than this, has given us Jesus, and with him the glorious Gospel, revealing an immortal life and a glorious inheritance beyond the Jordan of death. These benefactions of His love make his character appear infinitely attractive, so that the wonder would seem to be that any should fail to love him.

It seems clear that the Father may be none the less loved on account of his being unseen. We are const.i.tuted to love things unseen. And if we scan it closely we shall find that we really love nothing else.

Character worth, virtue, goodness, love, wisdom, knowledge, science, philosophy, religion, are all unseen. So the charm about a person that makes us love him is unseen. Indeed, it is the unseen we love, and nothing else. We are spiritual beings, and made for spiritual exercises.

Our nature is exactly adapted to the love and worship of an unseen G.o.d.

When we do not do it we are acting contrary to our nature. We deny ourselves as well as G.o.d when we do not love and adore him. Is it proper for youth to do so? By no means. All youth, and especially young women, should feel that so long as they neglect their religious duties they neglect the most important concerns of their eternal existence. They are not ephemeral, but eternal creatures. Their relation to G.o.d and each other are eternal ones. They are on the sea of being--turn back they can not. G.o.d is above and around them, and always will be. The sooner they love Him, the better it will be for them. To love Him is spiritual life; to love him not is death.

It is a glorious thing to live life well. They can not do it without religion. Woman is scarcely woman unless the great principle of love guides her. That principle, directed toward G.o.d and man, is the sum total of the Christian religion. Let every young woman so direct it that her whole life may be radiant with the light and deeds of love.

Lecture Thirteen.

WOMANHOOD.

Woman not an Adornment only--Civilization Elevates Woman--Woman not what She should be--Woman's Influence Over-rated--Force of Character Necessary--The Virtue of True Womanhood--Pa.s.sion is not always Love--True Love is only for Worth--Good Behavior and Deportment--Spiritual Harmony Desirable--Importance of Self-control--What shall Woman do--Strive to be a True Woman.

What is womanhood? Is there any more important question for young women to consider than this? It should be the highest ambition of every young woman to possess a true womanhood. Earth presents no higher object of attainment. To be a woman, in the truest and highest sense of the word, is to be the best thing beneath the skies. To be a woman is something more than to live eighteen or twenty years; something more than to grow to the physical stature of women; something more than to wear flounces, exhibit dry-goods, sport jewelry, catch the gaze of lewd-eyed men; something more than to be a belle, a wife, or a mother. Put all these qualifications together, and they do but little toward making a true woman. A true woman exists independent of outward attachments. It is not wealth, or beauty of person, or connection, or station, or power of mind, or literary attainments, or variety and richness of outward accomplishments, that make the woman. These often adorn womanhood as the ivy adorns the oak. But they should never be mistaken for the thing they adorn. This is the grand error of womankind. They take the shadow for the substance--the glitter for the gold--the heraldry and trappings of the world for the priceless essence of womanly worth which exists within the mind. Here is where almost the whole world has erred. Woman has been regarded as an adornment. Because G.o.d has conferred upon her the charm of a beauty not elsewhere found in earth, the world has vainly imagined she was made to glory in its exhibition. Hence woman is too often a vain, idle, useless thing. She stoops to be the plaything of man, the idol of his vanity, the victim of his l.u.s.t. In stooping, she lays off her womanhood to pander to the low aims of a sensual life. In every country and in all ages woman has been thus abased. The history of the world is all darkened by the awful shadow of woman's debas.e.m.e.nt. While man has admired and loved her, he has degraded her. Savage and civilized man are not very dissimilar in this respect. They both woo, cajole, and flatter woman to oppress and degrade her. They both load her with honeyed t.i.tles and flattering compliments, as though to sweeten with sugar-plum nonsense her bitter pressure of wrongs. It is the consent of all historians that woman has been elevated in proportion as knowledge and virtue have advanced among mankind. No one can read the history of the world without seeing that woman is upward bound. No one can look at woman's present estate, her devotion to vanity, her meagre knowledge, her narrow culture, her circ.u.mscribed sphere of action, her monotonous and aimless life, without feeling that she has many long steps yet to take before she will attain to her true position, her full womanhood. I would not intimate that man's love for woman is not sincere, nor that he designs any harm to her. Nor would I intimate that woman purposely stoops to degrade herself. The Indian loves his dusky maid with a deep sincerity of heart; but that love does not prevent him from acquiescing in the common custom of his people, and making her his drudge, and regarding her as his inferior and his life-bound slave. So the civilized man loves his wife with an ardency of devotion he feels for no other object; but that does not prevent him from subjecting her to the common lot of woman, or from believing it right that woman should be deprived by custom and law of that culture, those stimulants, and privileges, and rights which belong to her as an accountable being. Civilized men do not demand that their women shall be trained to the highest culture--shall be taught in the deepest wisdom--shall live for the broadest and grandest purposes. No; they think it is enough if their women can have a little smattering of knowledge so as to appear well in the drawing-room parlor. Wisdom is for men. Man alone may draw from the _deep_ wells of knowledge. Why have civilized men closed all their colleges and universities against women? Why have they shut almost every avenue to public usefulness, to honorable distinction, to virtuous endeavor, against woman? Why have they deprived her of power, and compelled her to submit to man in all the relations of life? It is not for the want of a sincere love for her. No; it is rather for a want of an enlightened view of what woman should be. Men, as well as women, have failed to comprehend the true idea of womanhood. Both have been satisfied with too little in woman. They have borne with the narrowness of woman's culture and the aimlessness of her life, believing it all right. It is a fact--a glaring, solemn, humiliating fact--that woman is not what she should be.

She is weak, thoughtless, heartless, compared with what she should be.

Look at the world. Woman is said to be mistress of her home. The mother is called the maker of her children's characters. Is it so? See the drunkards, tipplers, tobacco-mongers, libertines, gamblers, swearers, brawlers, robbers, murderers. There is a great army of them. They all const.i.tute a large share of the men and some of the women of our world.

Where are the mothers who will acknowledge that they made the characters of these people? Where are the mothers who teach their boys to chew, and smoke, and swear? to drink, and brawl, and fight? to do those deeds of darkness which the sun refuses to shine upon? Somebody has taught them these things. If their mothers did not, who did? If their mothers had been wise and forcible, as they should have been, would the children have been so easily led astray? If women had that influence which some attribute to them, would these things be so? If they had the influence they ought to have, would they be so? Talk as we will about woman's influence, it is not what it should be. We all know that if woman ruled the world, she would have less low, drunken, rowdy, sensual men. It has long been a hollow compliment which man has paid to woman to tell her that she rules the world. But no man believes it when he says it. Every woman should spurn the compliment as slanderous. Woman would rule the world better if it was under her control. Why are so many young men reckless, drunken, profane, and lawless? It is not because young women would have them so. Far from it. Their female a.s.sociates do not hold half the control over them that they ought.

Young women ought to hold a steady moral sway over their male a.s.sociates, so strong as to prevent them from becoming such lawless rowdies. Why do they not? Because they do not possess sufficient _force_ of character. They have not sufficient resolution and energy of purpose.

Their virtue is not vigorous. Their moral wills are not resolute. Their influence is not armed with executive power. Their goodness is not felt as an earnest force of benevolent purpose. Their moral convictions are not regarded as solemn resolves to be true to G.o.d and duty, come what may. Their opinions are not esteemed as the utterances of wisdom. Their love is not accepted as the strong purpose of a devout soul to be true to its highest ideas of affectionate life. In no particular do they make impressions of strong moral force. They do not exert the deep, resistless influence of full-grown womanhood. The great lack of young women is a lack of _power_. They do not make themselves felt. They need more force of character. It is not enough that they are _pure_. They must be virtuous; that is, they must possess that virtue which wins laurels in the face of temptation; which is backed by a mighty force of moral principle; which frowns on evil with a rebuking authority; which will not compromise its dignity, nor barter its prerogatives for the gold or fame of the world, the very frown of which would annihilate him who would attempt to seduce it; which claims as its right such virtue in its a.s.sociates. There is a virtue which commands respect; which awes by its dignity and strength; a virtue exhibited in such commanding strength of moral purpose as silences every vile wish to degrade it; a virtue that knows why it hates evil, why it loves right, why it cleaves to principle as to life; a virtue more mighty in its potency than any other force--which gives a sublime grandeur to the soul in which it dwells and the life it inspires. This is the virtue that belongs to womanhood. It is the virtue every young woman should possess. It is not enough to have an easy kind of virtue which more than half courts temptation; which is pure more from a fear of society's rebuke than a love of right; which rebukes sin so faintly that the sinner feels encouraged to proceed; which smiles on small offenses, and kindly fondles the pet evils of society out of which in the end grow the monsters. This is the virtue of too many women. They would not have a drunkard for a husband, but they would drink a gla.s.s of wine with a fast young man. They would not use profane language, but they are not shocked by its incipient language, and love the society of men whom they know are as profane as Lucifer out of their presence. They would not be dishonest, but they will use a thousand deceitful words and ways, and countenance the society of men known as hawkers, sharpers, and deceivers. They would not be irreligious, but they smile upon the most irreligious men, and even show that they love to be wooed by them. They would not be licentious, but they have no stunning rebuke for licentious men, and will even admit them on parol into their society. This is the virtue of too many women--a virtue scarcely worthy the name--really no virtue at all--a milk-and-water subst.i.tute--a hypocritical, hollow pretension to virtue as unwomanly as it is disgraceful. This is not the virtue of true womanhood. Do young women propose for themselves the strong virtue of womanhood, which is an impregnable fortress of righteous principle? If not, they should do it. It should be their first work to conceive the idea of such a virtuous principle as an indwelling life, and when conceived it should be sought as the richest wealth, as the grandest human attainment--as that alone which confers upon woman a divine grace.

Nor is it enough that young women _love_ well. To be on fire of an adulterous love or a blind pa.s.sion, which is little better, is one thing; and to love righteously, n.o.bly, steadily, is another thing. Woman naturally has great strength of affection. She loves by an irresistible impulse. But that love is not worthy unless it be directed to worthy objects and swayed by high moral principles. The love of a woman should be as the love of an angel. It should swell in her bosom as a great tide of moral life, binding her to beauty of soul, worth of character, excellency of life. She should not waste her love on unworthy objects, on impure and lecherous men or women. Her love, to be truly womanly, must not be a love of person or outward charms, so much as a love of principle, a love of magnanimity, integrity, wisdom, affection, piety; a love of whatever may magnify and adorn a human soul. It is unwomanly to waste the high energies of her love on the material charms of an elegant person, or the brilliant accomplishments of cultured manners, unless they are united with true worth of character. The love of womanhood is the love of worth, the love of mental harmony and spiritual powers.

True, woman may pity corruption, may sympathize with all manner of offenders; may give the force of her compa.s.sion to the erring and unrighteous; so she may admire genius, culture, the beauty of person, and the charms of manner; but her love is only for real worth, for that which is enduring and G.o.dlike. She may find pleasure in many things and persons that she must not, can not love. Love is too precious to be wasted on any thing but its legitimate objects, wealth of mind and worth of character.

Nor yet is it enough that young women _behave_ well. Something more is needed than a correct outward life. Many behave well who have but little worth of character. They behave well because it is best for their social standing because society loves good behavior and pays it the compliment of respect. It is well to behave well. There is no true life without becoming behavior. We have all praise for good behavior. It should be one great object in every young woman's life to study for a becoming and womanly behavior. Her manners should be agreeable; her conversation should be chaste and proper; her deportment should be dignified and easy; her regard for propriety and fitness in all she says and does should be made manifest; and in all respects her behavior should be such as becomes womanhood. But while we recommend this as of very great importance, we say it is not enough. Good behavior must spring from a good heart. If it is studied as an outside fitness, a cloak, or a fashionable attire, it will not answer the purpose for which it is intended. A purely outside life is a sham, and sooner or later defeats itself. There is no concealing a bad heart. It may be done for a little while, but it can not be kept concealed. Like murder, it will out. So a heart that is not particularly bad, but only lacks true principle, will soon expose its hollowness. Its want of moral power will be felt. But even if it would not expose itself, it would be infinitely best to imbue it with righteous principle. For itself, for its own happiness, it must be good.

Genuine good behavior springs from an inward harmony of character which blends all inward essences of good. It does not come from any one, nor a few great virtues. It is the mingled result of all. Young women, then, must not be satisfied with possessing a few good traits of character.

They must strive for all; for it is only in the possession of all that inward harmony can be enjoyed. The beauty of woman's life grows out of this harmony. A mind jarred by inward discord can never ultimate a good life. This discord will show itself in the life. Spiritual harmony is the great attainment all should have in view. In this lies the charm of womanhood. Out from this goes the sweet influences of the outward life.

The divine grace of womanly propriety is the fruit that grows from this combination of all excellences.

To attain this, the first thing is self-control. How few women have any thing like a respectable amount of self-control. The great majority are nervous, excitable, fidgety. They frighten at a spider, laugh at a silly joke, love at first sight, go into spasms at disappointment, cry about trifles, have a fit of admiration at the sight of a pretty dress, have as many moods in a day as the wind, and in all respects exhibit every indication of the most disorderly, uncontrolled mind. Talk about harmony in such a character! We may as well look for wisdom in the house of folly. No mental habit is worse than that of giving the reins to our impulses. They are sure to lead us into difficulty. There is scarcely a more disgusting sight than a woman, well endowed, all given up to the sway of her impulses. Trust her! Why, you may as well trust the wind.

Love her! You may as well fix your affections on the vanishing rainbow.

Hope for good at her hands! As well hope for stability among the clouds.

A useless, dangerous, troublesome, miserable thing is a woman of impulse. And yet there are thousands of them. They keep themselves and the world in a grand effervescence. If there is any evil to be avoided, it is this. If there is any virtue to be sought, it is self-control. And yet it is difficult of attainment in our order of society. Women are so shut up from healthy air and exercise, so excluded from enn.o.bling avocations, so hemmed in by conventional rules, so compelled to have waiters, a.s.sistants, beaux, somebody to lead them, advise them, do for them, think for them--are so annoyed by petty cares and trifling vexations, and so subjected to abuses, both of a private and public nature, that self-control is a virtue harder of attainment than almost any other. Yet none is needed more than this. And it must be attained, or the glory of womanhood can never be put on. If the struggle is hard, the victory will be all the grander. Let no young woman give up in despair. The power is in her if she will but use it. She may be the queen of her own soul if she will. All depends upon the force of her will.

Young women have much to hope for, and the world much to hope for at their hands. A better idea of womanhood is growing up in the minds of men. Woman's wrong, difficulties, and trials are being felt. Her aimless, hopeless life is being mourned over. The evils from a false society preying upon all womankind are being felt; and almost every woman is beginning to feel the approaching indications of a better time coming. Women are asking, "What shall we do? We wish not to be idle. We feel too much shut out from useful avocations. We feel too little opportunity to work out for ourselves such characters as we know we ought to possess. We must, we will do something for our own elevation."

Let every young woman determine to do something for the honor and elevation of her s.e.x. At least let her determine that she will possess and always wear about her as her richest possession a true womanhood.

This is the most that she can do. Above all, let her not throw obstacles in the way of her sisters, who are striving n.o.bly to be useful, but rather help them with the weight of her encouragement and counsel. Let her determine that for herself she will do her own thinking; that she will form her own opinions from her own investigations; that she will persist in holding the highest principles of womanly morality and the virtuous attainments which const.i.tute a true womanhood. When she has done this, let her call to her aid all the force of character she can command to enable her to persist in being a woman of the true stamp. In every cla.s.s of society the young women should awake to their duty. They have a great work to do. It is not enough that they should be what their mothers were. They must be more. The spirit of the times calls on woman for a higher order of character and life. Will young women heed the call? Will they emanc.i.p.ate themselves from the fetters of custom and fashion, and come up a glorious company to the possession of a vigorous, virtuous, n.o.ble womanhood--a womanhood that shall shed new light upon the world, and point the way to a divine life? We wait to hear the answer in the coming order of women.

Lecture Fourteen.

HAPPINESS.

Happiness Desired--Fretful People--Motes in the Eye--We were Made for Happiness--Sorrow has Useful Lessons--Happiness a Duty--Despondency is Irreligious--Pleasure not always Happiness--The Misuse of the World--Contentment necessary to Happiness--Happiness must be sought aright--Truly seeking we shall Find--Our Success not always Essential--Happiness often Found Unexpectedly--Happiness overcomes Circ.u.mstances--A Tendency to Murmuring--G.o.d Rules over All--Health necessary to Happiness--Disease is Sinful--G.o.d Loves a Happy Soul--Happiness Possible to All.

It is commonly believed that men are happy or unhappy according to circ.u.mstances. But this may well be questioned; for mult.i.tudes are intensely miserable under circ.u.mstances highly favorable to happiness.

The high-born, the wealthy, the distinguished, and even the good, are often unhappy. Many very excellent persons, whose lives are honorable and whose characters are n.o.ble, pa.s.s numberless hours of sadness and weariness of heart. The fault is not with their circ.u.mstances, nor yet with their general characters, but with themselves, that they are miserable. They have failed to adopt the true philosophy of life. They wait for Happiness to come instead of going to work and making it; and while they wait they torment themselves with borrowed troubles, with fears, forebodings, morbid fancies and moody spirits, till they are all unfitted for Happiness under any circ.u.mstances. Sometimes they cherish unchaste ambition, covet some fancies or real good which they do not deserve and could not enjoy if it were theirs, wealth they have not earned, honors they have not won, attentions they have not merited, love which their selfishness only craves. Sometimes they undervalue the good they do possess; throw away the pearls in hand for some beyond their reach, and often less valuable; trample the flowers about them under their feet; long for some never seen, but only heard or read of; and forget present duties and joys in future and far-off visions. Sometimes they shade the present with every cloud of the past, and although surrounded by a thousand inviting duties and pleasures, revel in sad memories with a kind of morbid relish for the stimulus of their miseries. Sometimes, forgetting the past and present, they live in the future, not in its probable realities, but in its most improbable visions and unreal creations, now of good and then of evil, wholly unfitting their minds for real life and enjoyments. These morbid and improper states of mind are too prevalent among young women. They excite that nervous irritability which is so productive of pining regrets and fretful complaints. They make that large cla.s.s of fretters who enjoy no peace themselves, nor permit others to about them. In the domestic circle they fret their life away. Every thing goes wrong with them because they make it so. The smallest annoyances chafe them as though they were unbearable aggravations. Their business and duties trouble them as though such things were not good. Pleasure they never seem to know because they never get ready to enjoy it. Even the common movements of Providence are all wrong with them. The weather is never as it should be. The seasons roll on badly. The sun is never properly tempered. The climate is always charged with a mult.i.tude of vices. The winds are everlastingly perverse, either too high or too low, blowing dust in everybody's face, or not fanning them as they should. The earth is ever out of humor, too dry or too wet, too muddy or dusty. And the people are just about like it. Something is wrong all the time, and the wrong is always just about them. Their home is the worst of anybody's; their street and their neighborhood is the most unpleasant to be found; n.o.body else has so bad servants and so many annoyances as they. Their lot is harder than falls to common mortals; they have to work harder and always did; have less and always expect to. They have seen more trouble than other folks know any thing about. They are never so well as their neighbors, and they always charge all their unhappiness upon those nearest connected with them, never dreaming that they are themselves the authors of it all. Such people are to be pitied. Of all the people in the world they deserve most our compa.s.sion. They are good people in many respects, very benevolent, very conscientious, very pious, but, withal, very annoying to themselves and others. As a general rule, their goodness makes them more difficult to cure of their evil. They can not be led to see that they are at fault. Knowing their virtues they can not see their faults. They do not perhaps over-estimate their virtues, but fail to see what they lack, and what they lack they charge upon others, often upon those who love them best. They see others' actions through the shadow of their own fretful and gloomy spirits. Hence it is that they see their own faults as existing in those about them, as a defect in the eye produces the appearance of a corresponding defect in every object toward which it is turned. This defect in character is more generally the result of vicious or improper habits of mind, than any const.i.tutional idiosyncrasy. It is the result of the indulgence of gloomy thoughts, morbid fancies, inordinate ambition, habitual melancholy, a complaining, fault-finding disposition. It is generally early acquired, not in childhood, but in youth. Childhood is too buoyant, fresh, and free for such indulgences. Early youth--when its pa.s.sions are developing, when the soul's bubbling springs are opening fresh and warm, when young hopes put out, to be blighted with a shade, young loves come to be disappointed with a frown, young desires aspire to be saddened with the first failure--is the season when the seeds of disquiet and unhappiness are sown in the soul. And in the most gifted and sensitive souls these seeds are oftenest sown. Those of highly poetic temperaments, of delicate and almost divine psychology, in whom some little const.i.tutional unbalance existed at the beginning of life, and whose judgments developed slower than their pa.s.sions, are often those who drink the bitterest waters of life. Beautiful souls, sitting in the shadow of self-gathered clouds! We pity and love them. We never see one without longing to bless it. Oh, could they but know how unbecoming such powers and virtues are, such gloominess and disquiet, they would rouse themselves to the glories of a morning life, and, shaking the dews of the night from their wings, would soar aloft in the sunshine of wisdom and love. Having tasted the bitter waters of sorrow, they may appreciate, perhaps all the better, the sweet nectar of life which ought to flow from all our states of mind and outward actions. We were not made for sorrow, but for joy. Our souls were not so delicately wrought to be wasted in fear and melancholy. Our minds were not so gifted to spend themselves on clouds and in darkness. Our hearts were not so firmly strung to wail notes of grief and woe. This beautiful world, so ever fresh and new about us, was not designed to imprison self-convicted souls away from its sunshine and flowers. The bending heavens arching so grandly over us, so studded with sparkling joy-lights, and animated with the eternal cotillion of the skies, invites to no such irreverent repining. Creation's wide field of animated existence inspires no such moodiness and fretfulness of spirit.

It is all wrong; it is absolutely sinful. We have no moral right to make ourselves or others so unhappy. We were made for happiness as well as holiness. All life's duties and experiences, when properly understood, are the steps that lead to the temple of eternal good. Disappointments and crosses may come, but let them come; they bring their lessons of wisdom. Failures may crush our hopes and stop us on life's way; but we may gather up and go on again rejoicing in what we have learned. Toils may demand our time and energies; let us give them; labor creates strength and imparts knowledge. Others may use our earnings, and require our care and support; let it be so: "It is more blessed to give than to receive."

Our friends may die and leave our hearts and homes desolate for a time; we can not prevent it, nor would it be best if we could. Sorrow has its useful lessons when it is legitimate, and death is the gate that opens out of earth toward the house "eternal in the heavens." If we lose them, heaven gains them. If we mourn, they rejoice. If we hang our harps on the willows, they tune theirs in the eternal orchestra above, rejoicing that we shall soon be with them. Shall we not drown our sorrow in the flood of light let through the rent vail of the skies which Jesus entered, and, to cure our loneliness, gather to us other friends to walk life's way, knowing that every step brings us nearer the departed, and their sweet, eternal home, which death never enters, and where partings are never known? We may still love the departed. They are ours as ever, and we are theirs. The ties that unite us are not broken. They are too strong for death's stroke. They are made for the joys of eternal friendship. Other friendships on earth will not disturb these bonds that link with dear ones on high. Nor will our duties below interfere with the sacredness of our relations with them. They wish not to see us in sorrow. They doubtless sympathize with us; and could we hear their sweet voices, they would tell us to dry our tears, and bind ourselves to other friends, and joyfully perform all duties on earth till our time to ascend shall come.

Every lesson of life, wisely read, tells us that we should be happy; that we should seek to be happy from principle, not simply from impulse; that we should make Happiness a great object in life; that our duties, our varied relations to our fellows as friends, as lovers, as companions, as parents, as children; our avocations, our labors, sacrifices, hopes, trials, struggles, should administer to our Happiness. And it is our business to see that they do. Is it a duty to be good? It is just as much a duty to be happy, to train our minds to pleasant moods, and our hearts to cheerful feelings. There is no duty more sanctioned by every moral obligation than the duty to be happy. We have no moral right to make others miserable, or to permit them to remain so when we can help it. No more right have we to torment our own souls, or to permit habitual sadness and despondency to weigh down our spirits. It is well for every young person to seek true moral light upon this subject; and especially for young women, for their peculiarly sensitive and affectionate nature, their confined habits and employments, their cares multiplying as they grow older, and their body-wearying and soul-trying experiences and labors demand the very best philosophy and religion of life; and more so as the men with whom their lots will be likely to be cast appreciate so little the trials and experiences of woman's life. They ought to start out resolutely determined to be happy, to seek the good of every thing. This should be the first precept in their moral mode, the first article in their creed, the first resolution demanded by their religion. We have no confidence in a gloomy religion. Human souls were never made to do penance, to lacerate and torment themselves in worship or duty. Every truth in the theology of the Bible beams with a glory that ought to illuminate our minds with a light almost divine. Every principle of "the glorious Gospel of the blessed G.o.d" is benignant and smiling with the love of the Father, and ought to animate our souls with the joy of a steady blessedness. Every duty demanded by the Christian religion is but the requirement of perfect love, and should quicken our consciences to the most lively satisfaction. To be desponding and gloomy is indeed irreligious. Hearty joy is the fruit of religion. Swelling gladness is the praise-note of the truly Christian spirit. There are no possessions like religious possessions to fill the soul with true enjoyment. And what are they? They are, first: a mind in harmony with the works and ways of G.o.d, which sees the Father in the daily movements of the spheres and the providential arrangements of the world; in the blossoming life of spring, and the withered death of winter; in the dear relations of domestic life, and the more showy fraternities of nations; in birth, and life, and death; in every provision for happiness found in the wide range of the physical and spiritual universe; secondly, a conscience void of offense toward G.o.d and man; in love with right, bound to righteous principle in a wedlock that knows no breaking; devout, honest, kind, because it is right and G.o.dlike so to be; which rules the mind and life with a gentle but powerful sway, leading where angels walk in every pure and honest word and work; and thirdly, a heart swelling with love to G.o.d and man; an earnest, warm, good-willing heart, lighting its face with sunshine, and softening its hand with tenderness; a heart that can melt in others' woes, and glow in others' joys, pure and chaste, subdued and calm. Such a mind, such a conscience, such a heart afford true religious enjoyments. The more one has of such possessions, the happier he must be. With such a mind, the true philosophy of life is clear--it is that we were made to be happy in righteousness and truth, and should bend all our energies to guard our hearts from every fretful and desponding feeling, and make every experience in life bless and make us happy. Oh, young woman! set your heart on Happiness; not on pleasure that floats on the surface of life, but on that inward peace that dwells in the soul devoted to all good. The things about us are designed to administer to our Happiness, and we should _use_ them for this purpose.

The world we live in is for our use. Food, raiment, money, wealth are for use. They are adapted to good ends in life. They help us to comfort, convenience, beauty, and knowledge. Wisely used, they serve us well; but abused, they sting us with many poisoned darts. The most of us make ourselves miserable by a misuse of the world. We fret our souls well-nigh to death about dress, food, houses, lands, goods, wealth. We live for these things, as though serving them could give us Happiness.

We are ambitious of gains and gold, as though these could answer the soul's great wants, as though these could think and love, admire and worship. We chase the illusive glitter of fashion as though it was a crown of glory, and could impart dignity and peace to its wearer. We hunt after pleasure as though it could be found by searching. Pleasure comes of itself. It must never be wooed. She is a coy maid, and ever eludes her flattering followers. She will come and abide with us when we use wisely the world and its good things. But we must put things to their true use, else pleasure will keep away. Oh, how much might we enjoy life if we would put things to their true use! When the sun shines, we must love it and think of its treasures of wealth to the world. When the cloud rises, we must admire its somber glory, for it is big with blessings. The morning must be accepted as a rosy blessing, the evening as a quiet prelude to repose; the day as an opportunity for achievements worthy of us, and the night for refreshing rest and recruit.

Our friends we must prize and appreciate while we are with them. It is a shame not to know how much we love our friends, and how good they are till they die. We must seize with joy all our opportunities; our duties we must perform with pleasure; our sacrifices we must make cheerfully, knowing that he who sacrifices most is n.o.blest; we must forgive with an understanding of the glory of forgiveness, and use the blessings we have, realizing how great are small blessings when properly accepted. I have known men sit to a table comfortably spread with wholesome food and make themselves and all with them miserable because it lacked something their pampered palate craved. A true man will _enjoy_ a crust of bread, and if he has nothing more, count it a G.o.d-send that may save his life.

I have seen women embroil a comfortable home with constant disquiet because it was not so grand as their vanity desired; and others never tire in their complaints against a very good house because it was dest.i.tute of a convenience or two that some other house had. I have seen young women completely miserable because some article of dress did not harmonize with the last fashioned plait, or some of their surroundings were not quite so beautiful or agreeable as those of some wealthier friend. Forgetting to use what they had to administer to their Happiness, they tormented their souls because they had not something else. All these repinings and complaints come from unchaste spirits.

Wisdom dwells not in such souls. The little we have we should enjoy, and if we need or wish more we should labor cheerfully to obtain it, and rejoice in our labor and hope. We should seek to draw Happiness from every little incident in life, from every thing we have, and every thing by which we are surrounded. This is the secret of much Happiness. I believe all desire to be happy. It seems to be the one great wish of the human soul in which all the others center. But desire is not enough. We must seek the Happiness we wish; seek it in the wisdom which opens life's mysteries plainly to our view; which reveals our present and eternal relations, and points out the ways of pleasantness and peace.

Would we know the _truth_, the gemmy walks of knowledge, the flowery bowers of inward and joyous life, the teachings of nature, revelation, the Son and the Father? We must seek, else how shall we find them? These things do not come of themselves. Our minds do not develop truth as the forest develops leaves or the prairie flowers, without effort. Truth is without, and must be sought. Would we find the path of _duty_? We must seek it in earnest effort to find and enjoy. And we must seek it with a full determination to enjoy it when so found. We may seek gold, honor, worldly pleasures, and not enjoy them when we find them, because we do not seek them in the right spirit, with an enlightened view of their uses and a determination to enjoy them in those uses. So we may seek Gospel riches, divine light, the instructions of the Word, and find much for which we seek, and be but little benefited because we have not resolved to be guided by the light we find and blessed by its divine spirit. If we would be happy, then, we must _seek_ to be happy, not without the use of proper and ordained means--not without a thorough consecration of our souls to the good of what we seek, but with a resolute will and determination in the use of all proper means to mold our spirits into the best and happiest moods.

We must seek Happiness in the ways in which it is to be found, in study, duty, labor, improving pleasure, with a constant inward effort to find it, to make it out of what we find. We must seek it in domestic and business life; in the relations we hold to our fellow-men; in the opportunities for discipline, self-sacrifice, forgiveness, resistance of temptation; in the changes and vicissitudes of life; in nature, revelation, ourselves, and G.o.d. If we thus seek, we shall find. This is the promise, and thousands have realized it. It is not a promise for the future world only, but for this also. We have the promise of this world as well as that which is to come. We need not wait for the golden gate to open to be as happy as our capacity will admit. We may be happy here.

Happiness is not hid away beyond our search, nor laid above our reach, nor reserved for the spirit-world. We may enjoy this life and its holy relations. Our hearts, our homes, our lives may all glow with Happiness on earth. The means for it are all in our hands. The opportunities are daily open to us. In the dear amenities of home and its dulcet loves; in the elevating pleasures of society; in the instructing pursuits of science, duty, and daily life; in the cultivation of every personal virtue and every Gospel grace, we may enjoy in this life a sweet antepast of heaven. Only put forth the effort in the right way and the happy result will be ours.

But we must not be too dictatorial as to how we enjoy life. We must not be too positive as to the manner in which we must find Happiness. We must not determine that it must come in just the way we wish, or else we will be miserable in the grief of disappointment. It is not for man wholly to direct his steps. Sometimes what he thinks for his good, turns out ill; and what he thinks a great evil, develops a great blessing in disguise. It is folly, almost madness, to be miserable because things are not as we would have them, or because we are disappointed in our plans. Many of our plans must be defeated. A mult.i.tude of little hopes must every day be crushed, and now and then a great one. Besides, the success of our plans is not always essential to our best interests or our Happiness. Sometimes success is our misery. Our plans are often our idols, to worship which is false and wrong. It is not in this, or that, or the other peculiar mode of life, nor in any particular cla.s.s of outward circ.u.mstances; nor in any definite kind of labor, or duty, or pleasure, that we must look positively for Happiness; nor yet in any chosen place or society, or surroundings, or under any particular cla.s.s of influences. If we do, we shall be disappointed; for it is not in our power to have things just our way, or to control our outward or a.s.sociational life just as we would. We live amid a mult.i.tude of influences we can not altogether control. Nor is it best we should. Our vanity, or ignorance, or selfishness might do us great spiritual injury.