St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1893-11-06
REV. MIR. INGERsoLL.
Proprieties and Dangers of So

Proprieties and Dangers of So
ciety.
Some things which DR.. Edward p.
1ngersoll, of Park Congregational
church, said last evening in the second
OF his series of addresses to Young
women:
In speaking of the proprieties and
dangers of society, he said: 81 use So
ciety III the sense of community about
US. claim propriety of conduct because
OF moral right and dignity. There is
danger i'll society because society gives
blessings. A sin is a perverted blessing.
Inc recluse is not the highest, is not
healthful type of manhood or woman
hood. Trees grow best in orchards and
forests. So do men and women grow
best i'll society. There is little of vigor
without it. The East river and the
Harlem do not together measure more
than twenty miles. They are great be-
cause they are arteries of life, but their
greatness and blessings would degener-
ate into curse ii the tides of the ocean
did not surge in twice in twenty four
hours. We must have currents or tides
and ruin. Currents fed by the hills or
tides are started by another world.
"Ihe danger in many young life is
not because it lacks high aud generous
Impulses, but because impulses become
headstrong. There is a dispensation when
the majority of girls, not all. thank God,
notal begin TO drop their sweet, native
charms and emerge into the hot spasms of
Independence. Sentimentaity weaves
with subtle thread. Imaginations play
within the brain, but are ''such stuff as
dreams are made OF" If ever a girl
needs the kind, directing counsel of
mother; If ever she should twit her
mother, 1t is when she is in her ''teens."
Ii there is ever time when she thinks
she can get on without counsel and con-
troll it Is then.
''Some girlhood notions of single life,
OF married life. of work, of riches, of
society, of pleasure are both delusion
and folly. Multitudes are living in this
city who were charmed by blandness
and smiles and pretty talk and pretty
presents (Which meant nothing but
shallow admiration and fiimsy flattery)
into moths and went circling about the
flame till they fell into it.
There is such thing as the best of
friends becoming too intimate. A hus-
band and wife may be too much in each
others society. L have known few
such cases. A very few.
when excIusiveness ignores eyery
one else we have a mutual admiration
society," and such a society. be it of two
or twenty, is not, to say the least, civil
liZing."
In speaking OF amuSements, he said:
Human nature needs relaxation. The
bow must be unbent or it will lose it's
spring and power. Amusements? Yes,
but tine word sweeps from the merry,
innocent games of childhood to the
gross revels of the bacchanalian. Can l
catalogue them and SO make you happy
and free? No! L should not mock your
Intelligence and your moral sense. This,
L can say, that the realm of rest and
recreation has been so planted with
hea!th-giving trees and vines that
Christian need not morn as in desert.
L make pigmies and puppets of you if
persuade you to let me think and decide
Tor you. Go only where and do only
that which does not make the thought
OF God an intrusive thought. Watch the
effect of your recreation upon your
Uouy ana MIND and heart. If,
upon the morrow ("honor brightly.
you find yourself more eager
tor work and thought and Gods
service. then for you your recreation is
not wrong. But you and must sweep
wider circle. Shall we say, II give
liberty to others. They must give it to
me?' No! not that, but this, rather:
IF meat Offered to idols) maketh nv
brother to offend, l will eat no flesh
while the world standeth, lest l make
my brother to offend"
No one will accuse Frederick W. Rob-
ertson of being narrow. He says of
this resolution of Paul: 'Out OF the
writings and sayings and deeds of those
who loudly proclaim the rights of man
and the rights of liberty match US, if
you can. with one sentence so sublime,
so noble, one that Will so stand at the
bar of God hereafter. as this single,
glorious sentence of his IN which he as
serts the right of Christian conscience
above the claims of Christian liberty
"A Romantic Bundle.