Women -- Biography; Women -- Social and moral questions
By a beautiful provision for keeping up the healthy interaction of the
social forces, when the period of adolescence is reached, the
sympathies burst the boundary of the domestic circle, and, through
delicate and often inscrutable affinities, seek objects of attachment
in the outer world. The upper, the middle, and the lower classes, for
various reasons must go out into society. That principles of character
can be imparted is one of the plainest doctrines of the Bible, as well
as one of the commonest facts of human experience. For this express
purpose, all the educative agencies of home, the school, the platform,
the press, and the pulpit, have been instituted, are kept in operation.
The Christian Church was formed by its Divine Head that all those to
whom His words are spirit and life, should impart them to others.
Christianity is a propagandist system, and is designed to revolutionize
not the opinions so much as the ideas and motives of humanity. When we
look at hundreds of girls, in pairs and triads, engaged in incessant
and animated conversation; when we think of the influences under which
their characters are forming, and remember that these characters, in
all probability, will last through life,—we almost shrink back from
the reflection, that here are the mothers of the next generation! If
there is contamination here, the consequences are more disastrous than
we are able to compute. Mutual influence is a law that embraces all
worlds, pervades all the kingdoms of nature, and reaches its climax in
humanity. All the elements and laws of the lower kingdom are summed up
here; and magnetism, affinity, and gravitation find their spiritual
archetypes in the influence of mind on mind. The character is like a
piece of potter’s clay, which when fresh and new, is easily fashioned
according to the will of those into whose hands it falls; but its form
once given, and hardened, either by the slow drying of time, or by its
passage through the ardent furnace of the world, any one may break it
to atoms, but never bend it again to another mould.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account