Girls: Faults and Ideals | Page 3

recreations, than grow up into womanhood ignorant and with
undisciplined intellectual powers. Train your mind to think. Set your
ideal before you,--rich, beautiful womanhood,--and bend all your
energy to reach it.
Some of these letters speak of the common talk of girls as being largely
idle gossip; criticisms of absent people; unkind words about persons
whom the ladies would meet with warm professions of friendship and
fervent kisses if they were to come in a minute later.
Dear girls, I plead for sincerity in speech. "Do not yield to the passion
for miserable gossip which is so common. Talk about things, not
people. Do not malign or backbite your absent friend. What is
friendship worth if the moment the person is out of sight the tongue
that has professed affection becomes a poisoned fang, and the lips
which gave their warm kiss utter the word of ridicule, or sneer, or
aspersion? Better be dumb than have the gift of speech to be used in the

miserable idle words, insincerities, and backbitings too common in
modern society. Surely something better can be found to talk about; if
not, utter silence is more heaven-like. A stupid girl who cannot talk at
all is better far than a chattering girl who can talk of nothing good or
useful.
"Find thou always time to say some earnest word between the idle
talk."
One mentions "_want of reverence for sacred things_" as a sad fault in
some young women. He has seen them whispering in the church and
Sunday school, during sermon and lesson, even during prayer, and has
marked other acts of irreverence. It is to be hoped that this fault is
indeed rare, unless it be in very young girls, who know no better. But
as the fault has been pointed out by one who has been sorely pained by
it, will not the girls and young women think of it a moment? A girl's
religion should be full of joy and gladness. It should make her happy,
fill her lips with song; but it should make her so reverent that, in the
presence of her God, in prayer, in worship, in the study of the Bible,
her heart shall be silent with the silence of adoration. Dear girls,
remember that in any religious service, you are standing or bowing
before God, and let nothing for one instant tempt you to whisper, to
smile, to do aught that would grieve the Holy Spirit. Others speak of _a
want of respect for the aged_, and especially for parents, as a fault of
young women. "How often is the kind advice a father and mother set
aside, just because it goes against some whim or fancy of their own! A
desire on the part of a young lady to live in the fashion, to be
well-dressed at all hours and ready for callers--how much toil and
sacrifice often fall to a good mother from such an ambition!" The writer
gives other illustrations of the same spirit in some girls. It is hoped that
there are but few who see their own face in this mirror.
Not long since I stood by the coffin and grave of a young girl whom I
had known for a dozen years. She received a fine education, having
finished a course in one of the best colleges of the land. What did she
do with her education? Did she sit down as a lady of elegant leisure?
Did she think her trained powers were too fine to be used in any
common work? Did she look down from her lofty height upon her
mother as old-fashioned, out of date? No: she came home from college
at the end of her course, and at once went into her home to lift the

burden and care from the shoulders of the loving, patient mother who
had toiled for her so long in order that she might receive her education
and training. When the beautiful girl was dead, the mother told me with
loving gladness how Gertrude had lifted one by one every burden from
her during those years, until, at last, the child's own hands carried all
the household care and responsibility. She did not think her
richly-furnished life too fine to be used in plain household duties, She
remembered all her mother's self-denials in her behalf in earlier days,
and rejoiced that now she might, in some measure, reward her. I have
spoken of this one young woman's loving regard for her mother, and of
the way she showed it, in the hope that it may inspire in many another
young girl's heart a spirit of noble helpfulness toward a tired mother.
One writer notes as a fault in some young women, that they are
careless of their good names. "They are not