n what they shall wear. The fashion-plate is their profoundest
study. The science of dressing is the only one they care to know. The
cut of a collar is a matter of sublime importance. How much of this
foolish vanity there is in the world! How many otherwise good women does
it spoil! And now the question with every young woman should be, How do
I feel about my dress? Is it a matter too bright in my eye--a subject
too important in my mind? Am I vain of my dress? Does it corrupt my
heart, take my attention from virtue, from mental improvement, from the
graces of a good life, from religion, from my Saviour, and my God? Do I
devote thoughts to Dress that ought to be given to the great problems of
duty, life, womanhood, to the development and culture of my powers of
heart and mind; to science, conversation, language, and the objects of
living? Why am I? Why do I live? To what end? Is there a great object in
my being? Have I any thing to do in its attainments? Does my love of
Dress interfere with the true objects of woman-life? This is the
questioning mind which every young woman should possess. Now let me ask,
Does not your love of Dress lead you from the great ends of woman-life?
Are you not taken captives by the glitter of Dress? sold bond-slaves to
your bonnets and shoes?

Oh, what a fearful waste of time and talent is given to the frivolity
and vanity of dress! what a sacrifice of soul and body, principle and
life, is made upon its altar!

What multitudes of young women waste all that is precious in life on the
finified fooleries of the toilet. How the soul of womanhood is dwarfed
and shriveled by such trifles, kept away from the great fields of active
thought and love by the gewgaws she hangs on her bonnet! How light must
be that thing which will float on the sea of passion--a bubble, a
feather, a puff-ball! And yet multitudes of women float there, live
there, and call it life. Poor things! Scum on the surface! But there is
a truth, young women; woman was made for a higher purpose, a nobler
use, a grander destiny. Her powers are rich and strong; her genius bold
and daring. She may walk the fields of thought, achieve the victories of
mind, spread around her the testimonials of her worth, and make herself
known and felt as man's co-worker and equal in whatsoever exalts mind,
embellishes life, or sanctifies humanity.

But notwithstanding Dress has fascinated so many thousands, and led them
down the paths of vanity and fri