Christian literature for children; Women -- Social and moral questions; Young women -- Conduct of life
Therefore would I conjure the youthful female to value her domestic
bonds as a means of moral culture, and never, under sunny skies, or
beneath clouds that lower, to lose sight of this use of them. She should
carry into the detail of her daily walk religious principle. Not the
slightest act should she perform, which is at war with her spiritual
culture. Love, duty, trust, these may enter into the very soul of her
being. Let her place them before her, and pursue them steadily, and she
shall become the "corner-stone" of her family, "polished" with a divine
lustre.
But, to render a greater aid to her who desires and wills domestic
excellence, let us now speak of the particular relations of home, and
their natural, consequent claims on the young of her sex.
The filial relation is replete with moral incentives. To both parents a
daughter is indebted beyond even the powers of requital usually granted
her sex. From the hour of her birth up to the present moment she has
been to them an object of unceasing thought, care, and solicitude. The
little being, over whom, as she graced the cradle, they hung with the
deepest joy, spoke to their hearts the more eloquently, by her very
inability to tell of her wants, by her utter helplessness. No labor was
spared, no sacrifice withheld, did they promise to advance her
happiness. A few weeks pass, and she is radiant with smiles, the
emanations of light and love; but they are smiles effaced often by
tears, and for these, the parent cannot rest till they dry on the cheek.
And soon her age exhibits character, dispositions, propensities. How
anxiously is their earliest developement observed. What plans are
devised, what efforts employed, what prayers nightly ascend, that she
may prove an heir of grace and godliness.
"The parent-pair their secret homage pay,
And proffer up to Heaven the warm request
That He who stills the raven's clam'rous nest,
And decks the lily fair in flow'ry pride,
Would, in the way his wisdom sees the best,
For them, and for their little ones provide;
But chiefly, in their hearts with _grace divine_ preside."
That father, with what meditations, and watchfulness, and alternate
hopes and fears has his soul been visited, as he looked on this
daughter. How has his daily toil been cheered by the anticipation that
its fruits would afford means to meet her wants, to educate her well,
and to furnish resources for supplying the outward and inward
necessities of her responsible age.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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