The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1871-02-25

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Il fearful experiment, and will cost you too
much. 1t is the womanly character, and not
the womanly form, which is respected, and
YOU com promise your womanhood by the speech
or deed which respect for the sex alone COM
pels man to pass by. He overlooks it of ne
cessity but he does not overlook You.
Regard sacredly the rights and feelings of
Others. In the exuberance of youthful spirit,
young woman may do what a moments re-
Election disapproves, but there is some self
will about woman, after all, and she is very
apt to persist in what she wants to do, without
consideration of the manner in which she shall
DO it, or how it shall affect others. Her desire,
pleasure, whim, are more than another persons
feelings, especially if that other be man, and
Ivy any betrayal of uncom fortableness, provoke
her still further use of her power. The woman
who will trile with another's feelings has little
self respect and little claim to respect from
others. She should be treated as you would
treat an unmannerly boy. By her own act she
has placed herself on par with him, and let
her take the consequences. Let me urge you
10 watch here. Young women greatly offend
in private and in public, in car and concert
and church and lecture-room, against the
simplest demands of decent propriety. 1t is
not the fine thing they suppose to make them
selves conspicuous. BY every claim to the
coveted name of lady, are you bound sacredly
- regard the privileges of others, and never
persist in anything purchased by pain or dis
comfort of another. In public places You are
anenable to the same laws that you are in
private, and yo1 have no right to make them
places for your personal qualification you
Lave no other business at such places and
times than that which proiessedly has brought
all the others together, and if you are not
willing to use it for that. the only decency is
I " you to stay away There is n" ruder vulgar
i;v than TO whisper in the presence Of a few:
nd the buzzing pests whose chronic torment
has made concert and lecture aud even church
lmost uncomfortable, whatever th-ir social
POSITION and self satisfaction, ara simply vulgar
Il nd rude
| sometimes doabt il woman understan :.
how pure Il thing purity is snd how her
fashions injure her fine sense 0f il, while ours,
none too keen at best, catches the contamina-
tion. For prudery, the prurent counterfeit
of purity, | have no respect. and it never gets,
rs it never deserves, honor. but only and
always contempt and suspicion. The street
and ball dresses OF the past few years have
done an amount of mischief lew recognize,
because so many sin, and we SO willingly lend
ourselves to anything fashion orders. But
fashion has no morals; her ways, if the ways
of pleasantness, are not ways in which the
pure can always walk in peace. Did you see
not long since letter from a young English
actress appealing to the higher classes of
English women? She said she had to buy her
stage-dresses from the worn wardrobes of the
rich aud titled, and that she had been reproved
by the manager for wearing dresses too indie
cent for the stage, when she had only worn
what fashion had sanctioned in the saloons of
the great 1t is vain, perhaps, to raise your
voice against fashion, but no young woman
oversteps the limit of modesty, without sully-
ing the idea man has of her, should she herself
escape taint.
And has it not come to this, that fashion |
presumes to dictate what shall be the law in
morals, and measures feminine delicacy, which |
is native and of God, by her will? A young
woman may 60 very improperly dressed into |
society, and she shall not be considered indeli- |
cate. II is the fashion. She may participate |
in dances that Victoria has banished from her |
court and outlawed at Paris, but there shall |
he no suspicion of her delcacy. 1t is the |
fashion. She shall read certain fctions with |
all their dangerous laxness. still her delicacy |
is not touched. 1t is the fashion. But let her |
walk without a glove, let her hurry in the |
street. let her read the actual fact of real license
and crime, let her mention the sin of her sister,
let her go to want and Woe, and straightway |
>he is indelicate. | do not understand all this, |
and warn you of the deeps before you, if you |
are going to let fashion meddle with the eternal |
principles of morality.
Iregard'any failing which mars the character |
If the young man, and imperils him, as much |
he sex of higher and more delicate organism. |
tuned to nobler ends and higher issues. l do |
not think that wrong or sin in woman is in |
Itself any more gross, but it seems SO, while it |
ars the more rudely upon those conceptions |
man inevitably has of woman. Selishness
and meanness are bad enough in man, but how
terribly bad they in woman! What de-
ormity, what disgrace, what shame t9the sex!
And yet | know selfish young women and |
mean older ones, and they do not seem to see
hat others count the leprous spots they do
lot realize that no woman can be honored as
woman should be who wears such stain. A.
lad temper is bad in man, but in woman the
quick tongue and flushed face, the swapping
'ye, the shrill tone, oh how they cut into the
ieart of man, and how they injure her in his
egard, and how they mar her influence
tnything that is any way false in man is as
,ad as falsehood can be, but the false in woman
-ah young women, shun it in look, gesture,
word, deed shun it in omission as in COM
mission. Tone down your extravagances. Keep
lose by that most sacred thing, truth be her
vorshipper, her bondmaid, and so shall you
,e the bright and honored thing God Graves.
These are dangers, perils, temptations Your
riends will not say much about them society
las no warning. Ungracious as it may be, let
ne warn you that here lies your way ofdanger.
appeal to your grand instincts of virtue |
sk you to have the courage to be true. You
IL
5 put upon externals, in which the brave, the
lonest and the pure are at discount,-in a
world which, from the beginning, cheats and
eceives the young spirit which comes into it,
nd will cheat and deceive to the end, unless
'ou will be stronger than it. Thatyou can be,
rod helping you
l have spoken of some of those things in
which the dangers and temptations lie which
RAW the young woman off from that noble
reation God means her to grow into. know
'ou think demand too much of you, but l have
to be true to my idea of woman,
nd so ask nothing that l do not believe her
lature fully up to achieving. | believe her to
,e the conservator of the race, that its hopes
ie with her, and therefore have | singled and
Iwelt upon some things which Especially think
prevent her following out her mission, and
which have lured so many from the grand
areer marked out for their sex. do not think
,oung women understand, or are helped to
understand. the life that is before them, what
hey are capable of doing, the nature and ex-
ent of their influence, and how intimately
hat influence depends upon character.
oward them, lead them into mistakes and
Iangers they ought to help them avoid. If
vord of mine shall help any one to understand
hat character outweighs every grace and
dorning, as the grain of gold outvalues the
leap of sand if shall rouse any to a broader
of life and of duty if / shall lead
hem to substitute, for life of frivolity and
incidence and Dress life of sobriety, refec-
ion, stability, in which they shall do justice
o themselves and justice to their privileges, if
shall have warned in time any of the foolish
ranites which never rest till they eat out the
oul, my purpose will be gained. Only would
desire to see the young about me giving
themselves in the fresh hope and ardor of
outh to the real work of life, busy, serious
in this neutral ground between
chool and marriage for woman's severest
uties, noblest Office, highest usefulness, and
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