Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women | Page 9

charms should be reverent in praise, pure in heart, holy in life, devout in demeanor, beautiful in character. She who is most beautiful should be most moved to a pious character and a useful life. She whose dwelling God hath wrought into the rich fullness of Beauty almost divine, who is spread over with a profusion of charms which no eye can behold without ecstasy, is ungrateful and mean in spirit if she returns not to God the "Beauty of holiness" in her life.
Beauty will not only win for her admiring eyes, but it will win her favor; it will draw hearts toward her; it will awaken tender and agreeable feelings in her behalf; it will disarm the stranger of the peculiar prejudices he often has toward those he knows not; it will pave the way to esteem; it will weave the links to friendship's chain; it will throw an air of agreeableness into the manners of all who approach her. All this her Beauty will do for her before she puts forth a single effort of her own to win the esteem and love of her fellows. All this is the direct, immediate, and agreeable result of a gift from her Father in heaven. How, than, should she feel toward that Father? With what noble gifts of gratitude and love should she seek to repay Him for this rich inheritance of Beauty! How useful, how lovely in spirit should she be! how thankful, how pious, how virtuous, how rich in inward charms! These are what God asks in return. Think of it, young women, as it really is. See God clothing your forms with Beauty, rich and ravishing in its charms; see that Beauty winning for you flowery paths of life, softening all hearts that approach you, making it easy, ay, almost a necessity, for them to love and esteem you; think how much you prize it, and how pleasant it is to your friends; and then think what God asks in return for this lovely gift. It is that you should be beautiful inwardly as He has made you outwardly; that you should be grateful, dutiful, merciful, pure in heart and life, meek, loving, useful, and pious. Does He ask more than what is reasonable? Can you do less than to love Him for the rich endowments he has bestowed upon you, less than to obey his commands, imitate his character, seek instruction from his Son, and be kind and good to his children?
How can you look upon your own forms or see your features in a mirror, without thinking of Him who made you thus? How can you look upon any thing beautiful, or contemplate the sense of Beauty within you, without reverent feelings toward God the Giver of all?
What does your Beauty avail you unless you are beautiful in spirit, lovely in character, useful in life? Ah, it is only a mockery, calling reproaches upon you from all the good, and the reproof of Heaven for your ingratitude! One of the most unpleasant, if we may not say hateful, objects in the world, is a cold, vain, heartless, beautiful woman.
I said that Beauty is a dangerous gift. It is even so. Like wealth, it has ruined its thousands. Thousands of the most beautiful women are destitute of common sense and common humanity. No gift from Heaven is so general and so widely abused by woman as the gift of Beauty. In about mine cases in ten it makes her silly, senseless, thoughtless, giddy, vain, proud, frivolous, selfish, low, and mean. I think I have seen more girls spoiled by Beauty than by any other one thing. "She is beautiful, and she knows it," is as much as to say she is spoiled. A beautiful girl is very likely to believe she was made to be looked at; and so she sets herself up for a show at every window, in every door, on every corner of the street, in every company at which opportunity offers for an exhibition of herself. And believing and acting thus, she soon becomes good for nothing else; and when she comes to be a middle-aged woman she is that weakest, most sickening of all human things--a faded Beauty.
It has long since passed into a proverb, that homely women are good, that plain women have strong common sense. An eminent writer asks, "Who ever saw a handsome talented woman?" There is among us a class of "strong-minded women," brave of heart and deep of soul, high of purpose and pure of life, who are stirring the country from heart to circumference by the sterling powers of womanhood which they possess, and there is not "a beauty" among them. There is a large class of female writers in every enlightened country, over the