Year: 1876

Kate Thorn, in n. Y. Weekly.


Sooner or later everybody has q
fling at old maids, either to say a
word for them or a good many
against them; and as yet we believe
we have not said anything about
them.


But reading, recently, ali article in
newspaper, with the well-known
heading, "Old Maids" We have been
led to think that it was about time
we, too, should "put in our oar"
This paragraph occurred in the ar
tlcle III question:


"Nine out of every ten old maids
are sour-tempered, gossipy, scolding,
meddlesomc old women, with big
feet. and scrawny necks, and they
are the pests Of the neighborhood."


Now, we don't believe any such
thing. Well stake our reputation as
genuine Yankee, good at guessing,
that the writer of that article is a
crusty old bachelor, who, in his
youth, wss snubbed and Tilted by all
the girls he sought to make love to,
and it is more than likely that some
OF those very same girls are old
maids now, and he has lately met
one of them and tried his fate over
again with the same unhattering re-
suit.


Story writers always describe their
old maids as tall, thin and angular,
with sharp noses, corkscrew curls and
the neuralgia.


Now, we know lots OF old maids,
and nearly every one of them is
plump instead of lean, and not one of
them wears corkscre " curls. Some
OF them are, without exception, the
best women we ever knew.


The majority Of old maids are not
unmarried because nobody has "ask-
ed them," for we do not believe that
there is a woman living who has
reached the age OF thirty without
having had an offer.


Old maids are, generally speaking,
girls who in their youth were bellies
and beauties and who set high val
lie or themselves-too high to accept
the proposals of common men-and
so they have, to use an old expression,
'gonc through the woods without
picking up stick" for the sole reason
that they were afraid of picking up a
crooked one.


A girl who holds herself too high
to stoop to wed where she can
neither love nor respect is very likely
to be an old maid. Age does not
make her any the less particular, and
as she goes along her life journey she
sees, perhaps, those who were girls
with her unhappily welded to hus-
bands who are unkind, or dissipated,
or careless, or unfaithful, and she is
strengthened by the sight to go on
her way alone.


Ana though we believe that mar
riage Is divine institution, ordained
Of God and blessed by Him, and
though we believe that it is far better
to marry than to be single, yet q wo-
man had better a thousand times be
an old maid than to marry a man
whom she cannot love and for
whom she feels no sentiment of re-
spect.


Girls are frequently prevented from
marrying by circumstances there is
no escape from. Aged relatives who
need the fostering and gentle care of
a daugl ter in ther waning and bro
ken lives, may stand between her and
happiness, and with q self-sacrifce
that costs her only Heaven knows
how much, she may yield up the
love for which her heart cries dumb
ly on the alter of filial duty, and
stamp herself with the dreaded stig-
ma of old maid


Again, death may have taken from
her the chosen of her heart, and her
nature may be too loyal and true to
admit of her enshrining another N
the place Of her first love.


Or she may never have met one
who has called forth the strongest
and deepest feelings of her nature,
and she may be wise enough to know
that marriage is never what God de
signed it should be unless it be enter
ed INTO by


Two souls with but a single thought


Two hearts that beat as one.


Old maids upon the whole are 4
blessing to the world. They take
care OF sick sisters and brothers, they
make the clothes for little nleces and
nephews, they cause Sabbath schools
to flourish, they help to bind
churches together, they beg for the
minister and get up album quilts for
his wife, they are death on rum
drinking, they are on the side OF
good morals everywhere, and society
would find it difficult thing to get
along properly without them.


Long may they flourish.