-Civilization Elevates Woman--Woman not
what She should be--Woman's Influence Over-rated--Force of Character
Necessary--The Virtue of True Womanhood--Passion is not always
Love--True Love is only for Worth--Good Behavior and
Deportment--Spiritual Harmony Desirable--Importance of
Self-control--What shall Woman do--Strive to be a True Woman.

What is womanhood? Is there any more important question for young women
to consider than this? It should be the highest ambition of every young
woman to possess a true womanhood. Earth presents no higher object of
attainment. To be a woman, in the truest and highest sense of the word,
is to be the best thing beneath the skies. To be a woman is something
more than to live eighteen or twenty years; something more than to grow
to the physical stature of women; something more than to wear flounces,
exhibit dry-goods, sport jewelry, catch the gaze of lewd-eyed men;
something more than to be a belle, a wife, or a mother. Put all these
qualifications together, and they do but little toward making a true
woman. A true woman exists independent of outward attachments. It is not
wealth, or beauty of person, or connection, or station, or power of
mind, or literary attainments, or variety and richness of outward
accomplishments, that make the woman. These often adorn womanhood as the
ivy adorns the oak. But they should never be mistaken for the thing they
adorn. This is the grand error of womankind. They take the shadow for
the substance--the glitter for the gold--the heraldry and trappings of
the world for the priceless essence of womanly worth which exists within
the mind. Here is where almost the whole world has erred. Woman has been
regarded as an adornment. Because God has conferred upon her the charm
of a beauty not elsewhere found in earth, the world has vainly imagined
she was made to glory in its exhibition. Hence woman is too often a
vain, idle, useless thing. She stoops to be the plaything of man, the
idol of his vanity, the victim of his lust. In stooping, she lays off
her womanhood to pander to the low aims of a sensual life. In every
country and in all ages woman has been thus abased. The history of the
world is all darkened by the awful shadow of woman's debasement. While
man has admired and loved her, he has degraded her. Savage and civilized
man are not very dissimilar in this respect. They both woo, cajole, and
flatter woman to oppress and degrade her. They