A SERIOUS MIND.
A vast number of people unfortunately labor under the false
impression that woman's great work and duty consists in making her
company agreeable and pleasing to all. This error is most prejudicial
to woman; it is opposed to the teachings of religion and the Holy
Scriptures; and nevertheless it is only too true that a countless
number of women have sedulously labored for its propagation, or, at
least, they have proved by their actions that this is their
_only_ work; and in many places, to the great detriment of
society, the education of girls has been directed in a great measure
according to this false opinion.
They are taught to esteem graceful manners, elegance of deportment,
flashy humor, affability of character, and unlimited condescension as
being the elements of a finished education; and the precious days of
childhood with the more precious time of adolescence have been
entirely absorbed to acquire it.
This is the school that has given birth to what is called "_Arts
of Pleasure_," to which it sacrifices the knowledge of more
necessary things which instruct the mind, fortify the heart, and
invigorate the will. Our compassion and disgust are simultaneously
aroused, when we see so many women whose education has given them no
other knowledge than to teach them how to flatter the taste of others
at the expense of Christian modesty.
How many women there are who, from their youth, have renounced the
dignity and glorious privileges of their sex, calmly resigning
themselves to play the inferior and humiliating role that the
prejudices and passions of a frivolous society impose upon them!
It is our heart-felt desire that you may never experience anything
of the kind; suffer not the aureola with which God has decorated your
brow to be ruthlessly removed and trampled under foot. Remember that
your soul is just as noble as that of man; that it is illuminated by
the same faith, drawn towards heaven by the same hopes, and united to
the same Author of all greatness and of all life by the same charity.
Should your belief in this waver, transport yourself in spirit to
Calvary: there you will see that women were the only sympathizers of
Jesus, and, while hanging on the cross, women were, with the
exception of St. John, the only witnesses of His death.
The apostles and disciples, all had fled; and in this memorable
scene in which all things seem to be confounded courage and valor
seemed to have taken refuge in the soul of women. Hence the Church
records, with love and gratitude, on the brightest pages of her
history, this noble and generous act of devotedness as being the
special privilege of your sex, since it was won on the ever-memorable
day of our redemption.
It is not easy to look a painful truth in the face; but we are
forced to do so when we reluctantly confess that female frivolity is
the source of that levity which prevails now-a-days, to such an
extent as to affect the very laws and government of society. To keep
aloof from this poisonous atmosphere, you must cultivate that serious
turn of mind, that gravity which gives women an air of majesty, and
wins the homage of those who do not even understand her.
Experience will teach you that the importance attached to the
seriousness with which woman's life should be enveloped is
undervalued. Learn to appreciate it as it merits; show that
appreciation by now giving to all the actions of your life that
weight and gravity which shall render them agreeable to God.
To succeed in your good resolution great firmness is required; you
will be obliged to condemn the frivolity of young persons in whose
company circumstances may throw you. You must set your face against
the fashions of the world, against the force of habit and prejudice,
perhaps against the freaks of your own character. But remember that
the reward awaiting you is well worth the struggle you are asked to
sustain; and this struggle will not be so difficult as you may think,
if you face it courageously, coherently and perseveringly, employing,
of course, the proper means.
To begin, you should cast overboard that inclination to frivolity
wherever you meet with it. But since a bad plant is more quickly and
radically destroyed by pulling it out of the roots than by simply
lopping of the tops as they appear over ground, so do we likewise
succeed better in correcting a bad habit, or destroying an evil
inclination by attacking it at its source than by being satisfied
with arresting its bad effects, allowing the cause to remain. And
since it is in the mind that frivolity takes up its abode, it is
there that it must be sought for and destroyed.
There exists among the different faculties of the soul a certain
order, a species of hierarchy which gives a certain preponderance to
some of them over the others; consequently some of them are of an
inferior while others are of a superior order. You will labor in vain
to give a serious cast to your sentiments and actions if you feed
your mind on frivolous thoughts, while serious thoughts are the
progenitors of enduring affections and noble deeds. Hence the culture
of the mind is an important factor to the acquisition of a taste for
those things which are the true ornament of woman. Sentiments are the
outcomings of thoughts, and both together are expressed by actions.
Feed your intelligence with serious thoughts; never amuse it with
those trifles which absorb the attention of persons of your age. Do
not think that those serious thoughts badly become your youth; that
they would deprive you of a part of your comfort, rendering you
wearisome to others and insupportable to yourself; that they would
give you a pedantic and affected air which would lead others to
believe that you despised them; that every age has its peculiar
tastes and customs, and that it would be an act of uncalled-for
severity to exact from a young person just beginning, so to say, the
apprenticeship of life, a gravity of manners and dispositions that
would scarcely be required at a maturer age.
Seriousness is required in all ages, but not always in the same
degree. Thus the gravity befitting a young lady is very different
from that expected from a woman more advanced in years. This virtue,
far from excluding legitimate amusement and pleasure, only regulates
and elevates them by confining them to just limits. An agreeable and
lively turn may be given to the most serious things, rendering them
pleasing and acceptable to the minds of all.
Truth is never subtle, and never darkens the soul in which it
resides; on the contrary, it sheds a halo of light around her,
revealing all those interior movements which lend a sweet and amiable
charm to every action.
You would be the first to condemn the doctrine of those who maintain
that woman must be of a frivolous turn of mind in order to be
agreeable. You would justly regard, as an outrage to your sex, such
assertions as go to show that seriousness can have no place in the
mind of woman. Such being the case, you will not say, with many of
your age, that the time will come soon enough to feed your soul with
solid substantial food; and that the age of serious thoughts will
come only too soon; nor will you close your eyes to the fact, taught
by long experience, that every one must reap in riper years such
fruit as they had sown in youth. If you wait till then, it will be
too late for you to enter another groove and form new habits. If you
are now frivolous in your thoughts and sentiments you will be so
later; for, as age fortifies the tastes and inclinations, frivolity
must increase as you advance in years.
Perhaps facts of this nature have already fallen under your notice;
you must have met with old ladies whose levity so painfully contrasts
with the gravity that becomes their age; and, while it is not
permitted us to judge others, yet every good Christian must be
shocked at this contrast. Profit by their example, sad as it is, and
hasten to conclude that it is folly to defer to a future time what
can and should be done at present; and that defects, as well as
virtue, are fortified by time and habit. If your early education has
not been truly Christian, if the teachings of divine faith have not
yet rendered you familiar with the most serious things of life, you
might perhaps consider as difficult, or even impracticable, the
counsels that I give you now.
Is there anything more serious or more in opposition to our natural
inclinations, and at the same time less consistent with the
deplorable levity of our minds, than the truths of our holy religion?
For serious, indeed, must be the reflections that those truths
inspire, which you should now learn to meditate seriously, in order
to make them a life-long practice. Is it not a serious occupation of
the mind to think of God, of the salvation of your soul, the
briefness of life, eternity which follows it, the duties that
religion imposes upon you? Is it not a serious occupation to address
God in holy prayer, to descend into the secret folds of your
conscience, and examine all your actions in the light of the gospel;
to reveal in all your works the sacred character that you have
received in baptism; to lead a life according to the spirit of faith,
and not according to the spirit of the world-for, if there is no
difference between your conduct and that of worldlings, to what
purpose will the title of Christian avail you? All this is a serious
work, and requires a serious mind to accomplish it.
The practice of Christian virtues supposes and develops at the same
time the love of seriousness. This love does not increase in a
superficial soul; while it is entirely sterile in a frivolous mind.
Remember that you have now attained the age between childhood and
womanhood, when it is no longer lawful to be amused by trifles, and
when you are called upon to prepare for austere duties which you
must, ere long, discharge.
You have now come to that period of life at which you must determine
your final future course; hence you have need of a serious mind and
will to guide you securely in the choice of the road, as also to pave
it with those virtues which in the end will form your most precious
treasures. This road will be such as you have made it, narrow or
wide, level or rough, according to the pains and labor that you have
expended in preparing it.
If you hearken to the voice of reason, and wish to profit by the
lessons of wisdom, you will not squander a most precious time in vain
amusements; you will neither step to the right nor to the left, but
continue right on in the way of stern duty. The world's siren charms
will have no attraction for you, as their bitter fruits would extort
from you bitter regrets for having so little profited by the most
precious time of your life.
Oh, how sorrowful the old age of women who have never nourished
their minds otherwise than with frivolous thoughts: finding neither
in themselves nor in society any means to dispel the gloom that
envelops them, and not being able to enlist the sympathy of the world
which abandons and despises them, they are condemned to eke out a
miserable existence in the disgust and wearisomeness of a sombre
solitude.
To a serious woman, on the contrary, old age lends a peculiar charm
which renders her company agreeable to, and sought for, by all
serious minds. Her conversation and manners still possess all the
blitheness, freshness and vivacity of youth. Her steady lightsome
gaze, tempered by a benignant and reflective mind, lends her an air
of amiability and majesty. Her language is instructive, her counsels
encouraging, while her reproaches arouse the heart to a sense of
duty. She has friends wherever she is known, friends who revere and
respect, without idolizing her. In her youth she never pandered to
flattery, now, old, she shall not experience ingratitude. The friends
she earned by her sterling worth will recall to her mind the happy
souvenirs of her youth, even up to the last days of her life; for her
years bear with them all their primitive charms which can never
decline under the influence of time, because the thoughts and
affections that produced and preserved them are now what they were,
solid and grave. And while the companions of her youth languish and
fret in their sad isolation, she, always the same, sees herself
surrounded by a multitude, anxious to profit by her experience.
If you have learned to be serious in youth, you shall enjoy an
agreeable old age; but if the former be stamped with levity and
frivolity, the latter shall be fraught with sorrow and desolation. Do
not count on the charms of youth, it is a flower that shall very soon
fade, and like a bird on the wing, shall leave no trace behind it.
The lustre of your eyes now beaming delight shall soon grow dull; the
bloom shall depart from your cheek; the bright hopes that now fill
your soul shall give place to sad souvenirs; and your heart which is
now the abode of delight shall then be harrowed with sorrow and woe.
To-day you are flattered and praised, then you shall be a castaway,
abandoned. All that will remain to you is God and your soul, with
whom you had never learned to converse or commune. Oh, sad, indeed,
is the old age of a frivolous youth!