Female Scripture Biography, Volume ICox, F. A. (Francis Augustus)
Religion
Female Scripture Biography, Volume I
Cox, F. A. (Francis Augustus)
Bible -- Biography; Women -- Religious life; Women in the Bible
The most effectual means of correcting this error, is in early life to
commence the important business of moral discipline by a solid education.
If a greater degree of attention be paid to showy, than to substantial
acquirements; if young ladies be systematically prepared to shine and
attract, instead of being assiduously formed to be useful in the stations
to which Providence has assigned them; it may be expected that they should
become solicitous of courting admiration, rather than of winning esteem.
They will necessarily be unfitted for domestic management, and
disqualified for the sober realities of life. If the matrimonial connexion
be founded upon no better pretensions, and no superior reasons for
attachment, it is incapable of securing solid happiness. It is, in fact,
at the mercy of every breeze. The wind of adversity may blow upon the fair
flower, wither its exterior charms, and leave nothing but prickles and
thorns. A consciousness of insignificance on the one hand, and a
perception of it on the other, will produce disappointment, and generate
dissatisfaction; and it will be found, too late perhaps, that the _mind_,
instead of the _face_, ought to have been principally regarded.
There is a species of parental vanity against which we would loudly
appeal. Some persons are extremely anxious that their daughters should
possess all the attractions of beauty; and from their earliest infancy, a
concern for appearances is instilled into them, as of the first
importance. If young persons, so unhappily circumstanced, should receive a
wrong bias, we cannot feel surprised; and it will require a long course of
salutary discipline, combined with the inculcation of religious
principles, effectually to teach them that to see, and to be seen, are not
the great purposes of human existence; that they must live for nobler
ends, and secure the approbation of the wise and good by other
accomplishments than a taste for the arrangement of a ribbon, or the
harmony of a tune. Unless they should be unfortunate enough to meet with
none but flippant and vacant admirers, to whose flattering nothings they
are induced to listen, they will find, that persons of real worth are not
to be attracted by tinsel decorations, nor a butterfly exterior, but that
"Man has a relish more refined;"
and will rather breathe the following sentiments, as the appropriate
language of a noble enthusiasm, connected with rationality and religion;
"Souls are for social bliss designed--
Give me a blessing fit to match my mind;
A kindred soul to double and to share my joys."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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