Serious Hours of a Young Lady | Page 9

by the
degree of importance that each merits, giving the preference, in your
mind and heart, to the virtues which bring the soul nearest to God.
Love those hidden virtues, so modest and humble, which are the
ornament of your sex--those virtues of which God alone is witness,
which the world ignores,--which it often, in fact, despises, because they
secure no advantage in men's esteem, receiving their reward only in the
future world. But this is just the reason why God loves them so dearly,
and why you should prefer them. For if, in general, it is dangerous to
please the world and useful to shun it, this truth is especially applicable
to woman, who, being confined to a narrower sphere, and devoted to
more intimate affections than man, is obliged to seek, at a tender age,
isolation, tranquillity, repose, and that retirement which are truly a
shield to her virtues. In this way you will do more for the real
development and culture of your heart than by the acquisition of more
agreeable and more brilliant qualities.
Moreover, the same thing will happen for you that always happens
when efforts are made to acquire what is best; when that which is
essential is secured, the accessories will infallibly follow, just as the
effect follows the cause that produces it. By acquiring the virtues that
are pleasing to God you will receive, in addition, those which men
esteem; in becoming more and more agreeable to God you will become
more and more pleasing to men, whose good sense and sound judgment
almost invariably triumph over prejudice which an austere but modest
virtue always removes. This is also what the Saviour of the world
insinuates by these words of the Gospel in which He recommends us to
seek first the kingdom of God and His justice, promising that all other
things shall be added thereto. But this addition should not be directly
sought, nor should it be ardently desired; await the will of God who has
promised it to us, provided that we first seek the things to which that is
accessory. Very often, on the contrary, when, through want of due
reflection, preference is given to secondary and inferior things, by

neglecting solid and hidden virtues for brilliant qualities, neither are
obtained. God permits this in order to punish this subversion of the
moral order and of the laws that govern it.

CHAPTER IV
.
THE DIGNITY OF WOMAN.
POPE ST. LEO, in one of his homilies on the nativity of our Saviour,
says, in addressing man: "O man, recognize thy dignity!" We might,
with all due propriety, address these same words to woman, for her
happiness and virtues depend in great measure on the elevated idea that
she has of herself, and on the care with which she maintains this idea,
both in her own mind and in that of others. Woe to the woman who,
through false modesty, or something still worse, has lost self-respect,
for she has deprived herself of her most powerful safeguard against
instability of character and seductions of the world.
Woman has received from God the sublime mission of fostering in
society the spirit of sacrifice and devotedness. Faithful, nay, sometimes
perhaps over-zealous, in the discharge of these duties, she feels an
imperative need of sacrificing herself to another who should constitute
the complement of her life. As long as she has not made this surrender
of herself to another she is a burden to herself, for she seems to find her
liberty and happiness in this voluntary servitude of the heart, in this
constant abnegation, in this perpetual sacrifice of her whole being.
This disposition of woman's heart, which has been given her for the
good of society and for her own happiness, can be easily used to the
detriment of both; such is necessarily the case the moment she sinks in
her own estimation, so as to account herself a being of little value. It is
a matter of vital importance to her to have a just idea of the value of the
present she is making when she engages her heart and her fidelity. In
fact, when a thing is lightly appreciated, we make little account of
giving it away and less of choosing those to whom we give it. Now, if
we consider the deplorable facility with which a vast number of women
obey the caprice of their heart or of their imagination, we will be led to
conclude that their valuation of them--selves is very low indeed. They
seem to lose sight of the fact that in giving their heart they give the key

to all the treasures that enrich their soul; they give their will, all their
thoughts, their whole life. They sometimes give more than all this, they