In short, is the ultimate object of the one, the gratification of self; and does all, with him, terminate in the external; while the other seeks primarily, in all things, the improvement, the holiness and the happiness of herself and others? How can such persons be suitable companions for each other? Can two walk together, says the Scripture, unless they are agreed--that is, agreed as to the main points and purposes of life?
I know of no being whom I so much pity, as a young woman who, believing, perhaps, that a "reformed rake," once handsome, or it may be, a wit, makes the best companion, becomes chained for life to a stupid, shiftless creature--one whose energies of body and soul are exhausted, and seem unsusceptible of being renovated or restored--one, too, with whom, in that more intimate acquaintance which time and circ.u.mstances afford her, proves to be totally unworthy of her hand or her heart!
I have said that I know of no being so pitiable, as a young woman thus situated. I know of none, I mean to say, except a young man in similar circ.u.mstances. Did the effects of these unhappy companionships terminate on themselves, the misfortune would not be so great. Woman, at any rate, with her fort.i.tude, might endure it. But it is not usually so; and here is the great evil. Misery is inflicted on a new generation; one that has done nothing to deserve it.
Let me entreat my readers, therefore, while I urge them to regard the companionship of which I am now speaking as a matter of duty, to be exceedingly careful in their selection of a companion. Choose; but do not be in haste. On the wisdom of your choice, much more depends than you can now possibly imagine:--it is for your life. Would you could realize this truth: for though so old and so often repeated that it may appear rather stale, it is not the less true for its age.
Have nothing to do, above all, with those who despise your s.e.x. There is a large number of young men--much larger, indeed, than you may be aware, who have caught the spirit, not to say sentiments, of Byron, in regard to woman.
They have _caught_ them, I say; but this, perhaps, is not so. I will only say they _have_ them. I know not how, as a general fact, they came by them. I can only say that they are often very early imbibed; and that they grow with their growth, and strengthen with their strength.
Would to Heaven this utter skepticism in regard to female worth and purity could be removed; or rather prevented. It is the bane of social life--as I could show, were I disposed to do so, by a thousand ill.u.s.trations.
As a general rule--to which, perhaps, there are some exceptions--it is according to human nature to suspect others to be wanting in those virtues which we are conscious we are wanting in ourselves. Find a person wanting in sterling integrity, and he is the very person to be found complaining of the want of it in others. I will not say that his complaints are not sometimes--indeed, quite too often--just; I only say, that whether just or not, neither his suspicions nor complaints prove them to be so.
Beware, then--I beseech you, beware--of the young man who is ever prating about the innate worthlessness, not to say vice, of your s.e.x. I do not say, reject him forever, simply on suspicion; for that would be to go to the other extreme. But though I have admitted that there may possibly be exceptions in regard to the general rule I have laid down, I also insist that they are rare. Therefore, I again say, be wary in forming your friendships--and especially so, in suffering them to become more and more intimate.
Precisely in these circ.u.mstances is it, that you may derive immense benefit from a discreet female friend. But in this, too, you must be deliberate, and use great judgment; for there are many whose views on this subject are such as entirely to disqualify them for the office of an adviser. I remember hearing a lady of great gravity--though of much good sense in all other respects--say, that she thought the friends of a young woman were much more competent to select a companion for her, than she was to make the selection for herself. I was so struck with the remark, that not knowing but I misapprehended her meaning, I ventured to inquire whether she really meant to say, that other people could judge better in regard to selecting a companion for life, than the parties most concerned in the choice. To which she answered, Yes, without hesitation; and immediately went upon a defence of her opinion.
I was as little pleased, however, with the defence, as with the a.s.sertion; for the whole thing carried absurdity on the very face of it. It cannot, surely, be so; it is contrary to the very nature of things.
I cannot help counselling you to be as wary of such an adviser, as of the friend to whom she would direct your attention. The choice--the final choice--be it never forgotten, rests on you: because on you rests the responsibilities. While, therefore, you seek, with great earnestness, for advice, seek it as advice only. Neither seek, nor admit, in any case, a dictator.
Be it also ever remembered, that it is your duty to sift, with great care, the opinions and views of one in whom you are daily becoming more and more deeply interested. If it be even true, that woman is _not_ distinguished for perseverance, let this fact only stimulate you to use what powers of perseverance you possess. Though you are not to be held responsible for the exercise of talents which you have not, you _are_ to account for what talents you have; and fearful may be the reward of the individual who is found delinquent in the matter before us; fearful in this life, even were it possible to escape punishment in the life to come. Let a comparison, then, be faithfully made of your views on all important subjects:--as female superiority or inferiority; selfishness and benevolence; dress and equipage; education of ourselves and others; discipline--its means, instruments and ends; household management; ama.s.sing property; the chief end of human existence; particular duties, &c.
While I would encourage every young woman to look forward to married life as a matter of duty, I am very far from desiring to encourage that indiscriminate conversation, which, among young women, is rather common. Let it be discussed by the young, chiefly in the company of their parents. Above all, let not females be found talking with great interest on this subject in the presence of the other s.e.x. Such conversation, in such circ.u.mstances, is evil, and only evil, in its tendency.
Parents may prevent this mistake in young women, if they will. The mother, at least, can prevent it. Where mothers manage the matter as it ought to be managed, you will not find daughters, on going into company, so deeply interested in these matters that nothing seems so to loosen the tongue, light up the countenance, and brighten the eye, as conversation about the latest engagements and marriages, and nothing so much or so quickly interest them in a newspaper, even a religious one, and that, too, on the Sabbath, as the list of marriages. Alas! do mothers or daughters know what are the practical common sense inferences from this conduct, where it greatly abounds.
Remember, moreover, in this matter, as well as in all other matters which concern your own happiness and the happiness of others--in this matter, I might say, which concerns your happiness more than almost all others--to seek the direction of that Being who has said, "If any lack wisdom, let him ask of G.o.d." You cannot, surely, obey this first injunction on the human race, without first and always, at every step of your course, seeking for his approbation. You cannot, in one word, be concerned in a duty which may involve the destinies--present and eternal--of millions and millions of human beings, without looking upward toward the throne of G.o.d, and soliciting, with all the humility, as well as confidence, of the most devoted child of an earthly parent, that wisdom and guidance which are to be found in all fulness in the Father of lights, and which, when properly apprehended, can never mislead you.
CHAPTER x.x.xII.
MORAL PROGRESS.
Importance of progress. Physical improvement a means rather than an end. The same true of intellectual improvement. The general homage which is paid to inoffensiveness. Picture of a modern Christian family.
Measuring ourselves by others. Our Saviour the only true standard of comparison. Importance of self-denial and self-sacrifice. Blessedness of communicating. Young women urged to emanc.i.p.ate themselves from the bondage of fashion, and custom, and selfishness.
After all I have said of the importance of physical, intellectual and social improvement and progress, it is _moral_ progress for which we were, pre-eminently, created. The great end of Christianity itself--to use the words of a learned and eloquent divine--is, to make men better than they were before: but whether or not this expresses the entire truth, one thing is certain--that wherever Christianity fails to make man better, it fails of accomplishing its whole intention respecting him. Perhaps the apostle expressed the idea I would inculcate, in the fewest words and in the clearest manner, when he required his converts to "grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."
Mere physical improvement--or even physical perfection, were it attainable--would hardly be worth the pains, if it were any thing more than a means to an end. We might study the subject of health, and practice its excellent rules with the utmost zeal and faithful conscientiousness; and yet it would hardly prove a blessing to us, if it only gave us the more efficiency in the service of the world, the flesh and the devil. And the same, or nearly the same, may be said of intellectual improvement and progress. Though the general tendency of both--when conscience is properly trained and the heart set right--is beneficial, yet it is not necessarily so, without a right heart and correct conscience. Satan is not wanting--so to speak--in intelligence or physical energy.
Physical and intellectual development and progress, therefore, are little more than means to secure an end. If they prove to be what it was the original intention of the Creator they should be, they are eminently conducive to our highest interests, both as respects this world and the world which is to come. If otherwise, they do but accelerate, and in the end aggravate, our doom. They tend but to make our condemnation the more sure, and the more dreadful.
I have urged, elsewhere, the importance of conscientiousness in every thing we do: let me especially recommend you to make continual progress in excellence or holiness, a matter of conscience. Do not be continually measuring yourself--above all, your spiritual self--by your neighbors. If you are the true disciple of Christ, and if you are what a Christian should be in this land of Christianity, you will not indulge yourself in comparisons with any but the Saviour himself. You will be daily and hourly striving to possess more and more of his spirit; in the belief that without the spirit of Christ, you neither are nor can be his.
It is painful to think of the great number of individuals who go through life--often through a long life--and yet accomplish so little for themselves and others. That they are free from outward immorality or blame--as much so at least as their neighbors--seems to satisfy them. Some of the best families I know, are trained in this way. They are excellent people; they are disciples of Christ, if there are any such in the world: we cannot say aught against them, if we would. They seem to discharge all the external duties of our holy religion with a most scrupulous exactness; and they seem--the whole family--to bear the image of Christ. Whatever is true or lovely, is theirs; or appears to be so.
And yet, if you examine closely the matter, you will find that much of all this is the result of circ.u.mstances. They possess, by inheritance, a happy temper--or they are in circ.u.mstances which make virtue easy to them.
But the spirit and genius of Christianity require a great deal more than mere inoffensiveness--though that is, of itself, certainly, a great deal. They require continual progress from glory to glory. But this progress can only be made amid self-denial and cross-taking.
"Whoso taketh not up his cross," daily and hourly, is not a true disciple of the great Teacher. It is even through "much tribulation"
only, that we can enter into the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour.
Now, to what self-denials, what tribulations, what taking up of the cross, do these easy, lovely families of which I am speaking, ever subject themselves? Trained happily, they are generally healthy--and therefore they have few trials from sickness. They live in the midst of abundance, and always have done so--abundance of food, clothing, &c., and of what they regard as of the best quality. They have more than heart can wish: their eyes, as it were, stand out with fatness. They know nothing of want: they know nothing even of inconvenience--except for some hapless moment, when a neighbor gets a little ahead of them in the fashion of their dress, their equipage, or their tables. Then a feeling of envy--peradventure a half expressed feeling of detraction--appears to mar, for a short time, their peace.
I have said that these inoffensive people--these do-no-harm Christians--know nothing of want. When and where have they cut themselves short of any thing to which they were lawfully ent.i.tled, for the sake of doing good to others? They have, indeed, performed works of charity and mercy, as much as other people of their own property and standing in society. But they have given, always, of their abundance.
They have never so given as to impoverish the giver--so as to make themselves feel the least privation. They have visited the sick: but when has the time they have given, seriously incommoded them? Have they not had time enough left for their own purposes? Have they not, in this respect, given of their abundance? Perhaps they have clothed the poor, to some extent; but have they denied themselves to do it? Have not their closets, and houses, and the neighboring livery stable, been well furnished and supplied, notwithstanding? Have they not given, in this respect, wholly of their abundance--and not, like the good woman mentioned in the gospel, of their penury?
It is exceedingly painful, I say again, to find professedly good people among us living, as Watts calls it, at such a poor, dying rate; the professed disciples of a Master who became poor for their sakes, by giving up, not only the luxuries of life, but even many of its necessaries--and yet not giving up or denying themselves a single thing all their lives long.
Can such people expect to make advances in holiness--to grow in grace and in the knowledge of Christ--and yet not act like him, or follow him? For be it always remembered--the benefits of doing good are to those _who do it, more than to those to whom it is done_. This is the ordination and arrangement of Providence. "It is more blessed to give than to receive." How sad a mistake, then, is made by those who seem--from their conduct--to think there is little happiness in giving; and that their charities abridge, by so much, their happiness, instead of adding to it.
Young woman, should it be your lot to belong to one of these happy and excellent families--for I do not deny that they are among our best people, after all, though they are very far from having, as yet, come up to the self-denying, self-sacrificing spirit of the Lord that bought them, and become willing to be poor, and to suffer not a little want of time, money, &c. for even their own apparent necessities, temporal or spiritual--I say, if in the providence of G.o.d, you have been accustomed to see almost the whole time and labor of a family, with the avails of a handsome, or at least respectable property, used up year after year by that family, in eating, and drinking, and sleeping, and dressing _comfortably_--in mere pa.s.sive enjoyment, in one word--while the blessedness of active enjoyment, in the doing of good to others, has been hardly known--be it yours to break the chain that binds this circle of selfishness, and go forth to the work of impoverishing yourself, as did your Lord and Master. Think not to make any considerable moral progress, otherwise! The soul must have food, as well as the body. This continual indulgence of the body, while the soul is unfed, or only fed just enough to keep it from starving, will never do for you. If you yield to the influence of this fashionable kind of excellence, and strive not to rise higher, I will not say that you will live to little purpose; but I will say, that you will have but very little of real, valuable, immortal life, till you pa.s.s beyond the bounds of time and s.p.a.ce. Whereas, you ought to begin your heaven here.
For "this is the will of G.o.d, even your sanctification;" and it was the prayer of Paul concerning some to whom he wrote--"The G.o.d of peace sanctify you wholly."
Will you not, then, O young woman! in view of these considerations, seek for deliverance from the spell that binds thousands and millions of otherwise good people to a narrow, selfish circle, in which they continually wander--coming round and round again, every night, to the same spot, or nearly the same, but making no considerable progress?
Will you not study, and labor, and pray, for more and more of the spirit of Him, who not only stripped himself of every glory to which he, had been accustomed, but, instead of retaining that which was his divine right, deprived himself of every thing which is calculated to make life comfortable in the common sense of the term, and only sought his happiness in perfecting holiness in the fear of G.o.d, by living and dying for his brethren--the whole human family? Will you not henceforth study to be more and more conformed to the Divine image--and to act less and less in conformity with a world whose predominating motive to action, is selfishness?