The Portland daily press., 1873-12-24
For YOur Own Sake.

| The entertainment of the Army and Navy
course was given at City Hall last evening.
Miss Anna Dickenson delivered her lecture en-
titled "For your own sake" y fine audience
was gathered in the hall. The lecture was
quite different from any of her previous ones,
though like them all it abounded in bits of pas
simate defamation and in brilliant word-paiut-
ing.
She began by referring to the Cuban excite
ment and deprecated war, for the nations sake
She remarked that those who were urging on
war were not the men who would be seen at
the front She then proceeded to the lecture
proper
The title of Miss Dickinsons DISCOURSE
For Your Own Sake" was aptly chosen,
her argument was throughout, for the culti-
Vation OF the individual in mind, heart, SOUL
prain, muscle, and nerve. She opened some
what abruptly by saying that in this world
men and women are here to live-to develop
characterize unfold the soul-to grow up
great and strong in all that gives personality
Individuality. Parents, however, ignore the in
dvidual in the child. They forget that chill
dren are living human souls, and should be
permitted, SO far as ny be, to develop outward
y from the mind and soul. But parents do
not recognize children as iEdividuals-only as
their children: and thus, instead of consulting
them in the shaping of their future lives, they,
as rule to crafty selfishness or egotism, do
that which they ought not to do. They drive
children that are shaped squarely into round
holes and those that are round into square
ones. That is, a child that would make good
machinist b ing horn with all the faculties that
cultivated, would go to make a frst-class in
ventor or mechanic, is, to crafty parental am
btion or prejudice, made perhaps a clergyman,
AMI thus are his natural desires checked, his
SOULS thoughts turned back on themselves, and
his life through all its future made void. God
never made two things alike, for if he did iden-
tity would be destroyed; and there never came
two souls into the W. rid that were the same in
things; but patent as this fact is we do our
best to ignore it, We should all remember, ex-
claimed the speaker, that when God puts
his monogram on a human soul, He puts it on
with indelible ink" But parents not consult
ing the soul of the child, would make him great
in their own way;, and yet his greatness
is little, compared to what it might
have been if he had led the life his aspirations
pointed out Had he been permitted, perhaps
machine conceived in his brain, OF built by
his hands, would to himself and to the world
have been better than a first-cass sermon.
Miss Dickinson then entered upon the discus
sion of other topics, ALL however, pertinent to
the theme of the discourse. She alluded to the
mental blindness of men and women; to the
folly of which so many were guilty in living
beyond their means: to the objectless careers
OF thousands of young women; to the causes
which led so many into paths of shame; to the
ridiculous notion many women have, that If
they do not appear well before the world, and
in the latest Styles they would be criticised by
hundreds who never stopped to inquire into
their careers at home, or in society," In fact, she
insisted, people do not know themselves, be-
cause they are ignorant OF themselvesw
Inst Anf hnv, fl,nsv fskr., f1..I -.4
the usual duties imposed by society, of calling,
of attending church meeting, societies and So
ciables, and instead of getting married simply
to escape being stlgmatized as an ola maid,
their life should he spent in busy en- jeavor to
accomplish and realize some object resulting in
permanent and substantial benefit, both to ones
| self and to the world. Many are the men who
begin wrong and keep on doing wrong through
| their lifetime. They do not not cultivate and
| exercise their peculiar characteristics and al
ents in their work, rsr do they choose for a
life's work an occupation that will Employ their
best faculties. He who makes good machine
does better work than he who breaches first
Glars sermon provided his soul finds expression
in it.
She took occasion to deliver a number of tel
ling thrusts at the prejudces and customs
| which are to be met with on every hand and
| particularly did she condemn the ridiculous
| custom woman has of riding on the side rather
than the back of the horse. thus tring the mus
| cles and overstraining the nervous system,
| while, as our livery stabe-keepers will declare
she Injuries the animal npon whose weakest
| (the left) side she is made, and ridicuously SO,
to hang, rather than to be comfortably and Sc
curely seated
She spoke at some length upon the prevail
| ing error OF living too much for others and not
enough for ones self, and the recompense sure
to come from earnest endeavor and closed with
! the inspiring words: "To him who climbs the
mountain tops is the glory of God revealed