The Newtown bee., 1908-06-12

ply
 With purple, chrome and cochineal,
 0chie and lapis lazuli.
 The worm its golden wool presents;
 Whatever runs, flies, dives or delves,
 All dof for.her their ornaments
 Which suit her better than themselves.
 But still l ask you and l am no speaking. without a certain amount oi evidence, although you know far bet ter than do, whether the time ant thought that is spent over dress is no out of all proportion with the impor tance of the matter? In amusements ant dress as in everything else let there bt proportion. I.must say word or twt as have to every graduation class have known in this school which you and l love so well, about your in-
 fuence as women upon your menfolks. Think what a blow you will give 8 young man, fresh from college whom you met in society, if his ideal is low cred of what good girl or woman ought to be, men are often led to live to religion through some good woman whom they know. What keeps them straight and pure and true is someone of you whom they know as a sister or friend or someone who is to them a beautiful ideal. Realize that you have this priceless influence, you possess it and you must answer to God for your use of it. You can ruin life, quite easily, you can uplift a character as no angel can because of your influence at certain time of life over young men and boys, as Tennnyson says: "The woman makes us most" Rus kin says: "The whole course and char acter of the lives of the men you meet, in close intimacy, is in your hands, what you would have them be, they will be if you not only desire to have them so, for they are mirrors in which you will see yourselves imaged, if you are frivolous, they will be so also if you have no understanding of the scope of duty they also will forget it, they will listen, they can listen to no other than that uttered by your lips. All this is grandly true. How profound, true and significant is the teaching of the great religious poet, Dante, where he shows that it was the revelation and the clearer vision of the livine beauty of Beatrice which led 1im up through Purgatory to Paradise. He rises towards celestial light, not oy any physical effort on his part but ,y the attraction of her pure, ineff- ,ble loveliness.
 Q lady, thou in whom my hopes have
 rest!
 Who for my safety hast not scorn'd in To leave the traces of thy footsteps
 worked! Tor all mine eyes have seen. to thy
 power And goodness, virtue owe and grace. Thy liberal bounty still toward me
 keep, That when my spirit which thou madest
 whole, s loosened from this body, it may find
 favor with thee."
 Thus does he follow his beloved Beat ice. beloved and beautiful. as the min strant angel who leads him up to God. | Ve have here great poetic symbol of | he power of a consecrated manhood. | Ve grow noble as woman calls us up o nobleness and by the law of assimi- | ation we are fashioned after her like less in the proportion in which we ove and admire her. That which we dmire, we aspire, that which we joy | n fills and fashions us, that which we 3ve, possesses us. As she is whom we len admire, rejoice in and love, so will ,e be. This it is yours to order by the | nconscious influence of your very elves. l call you to these two minisaI ries, the ministry to those outside and ne ministry to your equals. Accept | 1em and you will not waste in empty ossip or in frivolous pursuits that recious commodity which we call me but will gather up its tiniest that nothing be lost. Clothed l the beauty which a lovely soul i'm arts, you will not be able to live with 1t purifying someone neither can any veliness which flows from you be lost . wasted.
 Your good deeds will not die. ut like the sun and moon, renew
 their light,
 orever blessing those who look upon
 them."
 hen, will come the statlier Eden back
 to men;
 hen reign the worlds great bridals,
 chaste and calm;
 hen springs the crowning race of hu-
 man kind. ay these things be!