"There are yet other consequences which attend an immoderate passion for the embellishments of dress. When the mind is fixed upon objects which derive their chief value from administering to vanity and the love of admiration, the aversion, which almost every individual of either sex is prone to feel towards a rival, is particularly called forth. And when objects attainable so easily as exterior ornaments occupy the heart, there will be rivals without number. Hence, it is not uncommon to see neighbouring young women engaged in a constant state of petty warfare with each other. To vie in ostentatiousness, in costliness, or in elegance of apparel--to be distinguished by novel inventions in personal decoration--to gain the earliest intelligence respecting changes of fashion in the metropolis--to detect, in the attire of a luckless competitor, traces of a mode which for six weeks has been obsolete in high life--these frequently are the points of excellence to which the force of female genius is directed. In the meantime, while the mask of friendship is worn, and the language of regard is on the tongue, indifference, disgust, and envy are gradually taking possession of the breast; until, at length, the unworthy contest, prolonged for years under habits of dissimilation, by which neither of the parties are deceived, terminates in the violence of an open rupture. "The Scriptures have spoken so plainly and so strongly respecting solicitude about dress, that I cannot quit the subject without a special reference to their authority. Our Saviour, in one of his most solemn discourses, warns his followers against anxiety as to 'wherewithal they should be clothed,' in a manner particularly emphatic, classing that anxiety with the despicable pursuits of those who are studious 'what they shall eat, and what they shall drink;' and by pronouncing all such cares to be among the characteristics by which the heathens were distinguished. It ought to be observed, that these admonitions of Christ respect men no less than women. The apostle Paul speaks pointedly concerning female dress, saying--'I will, in like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shame-facedness and sobriety: not with broidered hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; but, which becometh women professing godliness, with good works.' In another passage, St. Peter also speaks expressly of the female sex: and primarily of married women, but in terms applicable with equal propriety to the single--'Whose adorning, let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair and of wearing of gold, and of putting on of apparel. But let it be the hidden man of the heart' (the inward frame and disposition of the mind), 'in that which is not corruptible; even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.' It would be too much to assert, on the one hand, that it was the intention of either