Oh! those women who remain beautiful in spite of old age, with their white hair, their wrinkles undisguised, their cultivated minds, and their winning kindness. These are not the women who in earlier life placed all their happiness in following, even to the most minute details, the frivolities of fashion. I am, moreover, convinced that if the woman of the world of twenty or thirty years ago was fond of dress, she was far from devoting her whole time to it. Fashion was not then so variable. The outlay for clothing was evidently a much smaller item in the family expenses. In a word, if this folly was sometimes seen, it was an isolated case.
In these latter days only has the contagion spread in an alarming manner.
So much for the human side of the question. Permit me now to enter into a more elevated circle of ideas, and to remark that hitherto I have appealed neither to conscience nor to religion. I have addressed myself to women of the world; I now turn to young Christian women; to those whose tender years were watched over by pious mothers, whose youth was formed by a truly religious education; to those whose lives have not been blighted by any of those errors which banish a woman from her position in society, but who, on the contrary, have remained unsullied in the eyes of the world and have no cause to blush beneath its gaze. Here I feel at my ease, since it is permitted me to make use of the language of faith. This faith we still possess, but it slumbers in the depths of our souls; undoubtedly it will awaken in the hour of trial; the death of a darling child, a sudden change of fortune; less than that even--a single deception may suffice, and we shall feel that God is our father; and we shall see things in their true light; that poisonous cloud which surrounds the woman of the world will be instantly dispelled, and the mysteries of life and death will be unfolded to our astonished gaze. But until that time shall come, our life is consumed in a strange and dangerous illusion. A few religious practices of which we have retained the habit, perhaps because they were fashionable, make us believe, and therefore cause others to believe, that we are still real Christians. Meanwhile, carried away by the round of pleasure which we call legitimate enjoyment, we live on, without troubling ourselves to inquire whither we are hastening. Days follow days, years succeed years; from time to time one among us is missing. God has called her away; but we did not hear her last words; we did not see the despair of that poor young woman when she found herself in the presence of her Judge with her hands empty. And hence we continue in our mode of life. Hours and days of weariness, of sadness occasionally steal in upon our worldly lives. Some new pleasure claims us, and in its presence past bitterness is soon forgotten. Thus are spent the best years of our lives, lost--religiously speaking--lost for ever. Our actions are useless, our thoughts frivolous, our existence devoid of all merit. And yet ought not our constant aim be to secure the happiness of our husband, and the salvation of his soul as well as of our own? to bring up our children in a Christian manner, and to edify the world by our example?