Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women | Page 7

a shiftless,
homeless, useless know-nothing in relation to all the great activities of
life, by which we secure the necessaries and comforts of our existence.
It is through useful industry and labor that the rarest beauties and forces

of character shine. Men show themselves great and good in their
professions and callings. The man whose hands are taught no skill, who
is trained to no profession, is a ninny, or nearly so. Why is not a woman
who is equally useless? Characters must have some way to embody
themselves in an outward form to be of service to the world. The best
way is in devotion to some useful calling or profession, by which our
powers may be called upon for their best efforts in a direction that shall
promise a full reward for ourselves and a good surplus for our
fellow-men.

Lecture Two.
BEAUTY.
God a Lover of Beauty--Every thing in the Universe Beautiful--The
Admirer of Beauty should Reverence its Author--The Love of Beauty
elevating in its Tendency--Its Abuses Fearful--Man a Part of Nature,
and God in all--Woman the most Perfect Type of Beauty--Youthful
Woman exposed to great Temptation--Beauty a Charming, but
Dangerous Gift--The most Beautiful should be the most Pious--Beauty
of Person Worthless without Loveliness of Character--"Strong-minded"
Women not Beautiful--Beauty the Nurse of Vanity--Value of Character
depreciates with Increase of Beauty when substituted for Moral
Worth--Beauty only Skin-deep--Beauty Two-fold: Inward and
Outward--Inward Beauty shines through--Beauty of Soul made
Washington, Josephine, and Channing glorious--Every Woman may be
Beautiful--Cheerfulness, Agreeable Manners, a Correct Taste, and
Kindness should be Cultivated.
We doubt not that God is a lover of Beauty. We speak reverently. He
fashioned the worlds in Beauty, when there was no eye to behold them
but his own. All along the wild old forest he has carved the forms of
Beauty. Every cliff, and mountain, and tree is a statue of Beauty. Every
leaf, and stem, and vine, and flower is a form of Beauty. Every hill, and
dale, and landscape is a picture of Beauty. Every cloud, and
mist-wreath, and vapor-vail is a shadowy reflection of Beauty. Every

spring and rivulet, lakelet, river, and ocean, is a glassy mirror of Beauty.
Every diamond, and rock, and pebbly beach is a mine of Beauty. Every
sun, and planet, and star is a blazing face of Beauty. All along the aisles
of earth, all over the arches of heaven, all through the expanses of the
universe, are scattered in rich and infinite profusion the life-gems of
Beauty. All natural motion is Beauty in action. The winds, the waves,
the clouds, the trees, the birds, the animals, all move beautifully; and
beautifully do the joyous light-words of the skies dance their eternal
cotillion of glory. From the mote that plays its little frolic in the
sunbeam, to the world that blazes along the sapphire spaces of the
firmament, are visible the ever-varying features of the enrapturing spirit
of Beauty. All this great realm of dazzling and bewildering beauty was
made by God. What shall we say then, is he not a lover of Beauty? Is it
irreverence thus to speak? No; but rather reverence. What reverent soul
does not love to look at God in his works? Go out in the still morning,
when the golden gates of day are turning slowly back to let the morning
king come in with a great crown of rosy light streaking half around the
heavens, on his brow; or at noon, when the whole firmament and the
joyous earth are bathed in a golden flood, soft, and warm, and
life-inspiring; or at evening, when even the zephyrs are folding up their
wings with the little birds, and the trees, and the fields, and the smiling
mountain tops are bidding a sweet good-night to their heavenly king as
encurtained in diamond glory he sinks to rest; or at night, when the
stars come out to keep their vigils over the sleeping earth; go out at
such times, and what heart is not bewildered with the sense of Beauty
that steals over it like a divine charm? and through that beauty is not
carried up to God the beautiful and bountiful author of it all? God hath
made every thing beautiful in its time. I envy not him who is undevout
in the presence of so much Beauty. How easily can the devout spirit go
through nature up to nature's God. Who loves nature should love God.
Who admires Beauty should reverence its Author. Natural beauty
inspires piety in a good heart. To commune with nature intelligently is
to commune with God. Who ever loves a flower, a bird, a landscape
view, a rainbow, a star, the blue sky, should love God. God is in them
all. He is in the aisles of the forest, the waves