2. The fact that she is a woman gives her influence. In her terrible work beauty is an aid. God says, "Desire not her beauty in thy heart, neither let her take thee with her eyelids." That is, look for something besides a pretty face or a twinkling eye. "Pretty is that pretty does," is a good motto, and utters a truth which is quite too frequently ignored. Beauty is not to be despised or condemned. God, who painted the lilies' bloom, and covered the sky with the wondrous tints of a glowing sunset, must enjoy beauty, and surely made it to please and to bless us. Yet when it comes to be used as an agent of evil, it is to be shunned and disregarded. In all this world there is nothing so empty as a heartless, brainless woman, with a pretty face. Yet beauty is a power; so the heathen declare, "Every woman would rather be handsome than good." That may be true in heathen, but it is not true of all in Christian climes. If there is one woman who thinks more of dress than duty, more of shadow than substance, more of Vanity Fair than of Virtue's bower, then beware. You are not an ally of Christ. At once begin a new life, if you would shun the dangers and avoid the terrible doom threatening you. Cast away that which excites passions and gives the body unrest, and seek the food for mind and soul which gives rest and peace. Seek Christ, and through him victory over self and over sin. Do something to brighten your home life and to honor your Master. Clear your soul from the taint of vanity. Do not rejoice in conquests, either that your power to allure may be seen by other women, or for the pleasure of rousing passionate, feelings that gratify your love of excitement. It must happen, no doubt, that frank and generous women will excite love they do not reciprocate; but, in nine cases out of ten, the woman has, half consciously, done much to excite it. In this case she shall not be held guiltless, either as to the unhappiness or injury of the lover. Pure love, inspired by a worthy object, must ennoble and bless, whether mutual or not; but that which is excited by coquettish attraction, of any grade of refinement, must cause bitterness and doubt as to the reality of human goodness so soon as the flush of passion is over. And that you may avoid all taste for these false pleasures,
"steep the soul In one pure love, and it will last thee long."
The love of truth, the love of excellence, whether or not you clothe them in the person of a special object, will have power to save you much of evil, and lead you into the green glades where the feet of the virtuous have trod. Preserve the modesty of your sex by filling the mind with noble desires, that shall ward off the corruptions of vanity and idleness. "A profligate woman, who left her accustomed haunts and took service in a New York boarding-house, said, 'She had never heard talk so vile at the Five Points as from the ladies at the boarding-house.' And why? Because they were idle; because, having nothing worthy to engage them, they dwelt, with unnatural curiosity, on the ill they dared not go to see." This seems like an exaggeration. Yet Margaret Fuller is responsible for the utterance.[A] Avoid idleness. The mind, like a mill, must have some thought in the hopper of reflection, or the machinery will prove to be self-destructive. Shun flattery. The woman who permits in her life the alloy of vanity; who lives upon flattery, coarse or fine, is lost, and loses the tribute paid the woman by the iron-handed warrior, whom he rejoiced to recognize as his helpmeet, saying, "Whom God loves, to him he gives such a wife."
[Footnote A: Woman of the Nineteenth Century, p. 168.]
The influence of married women over their younger sisters may be beneficent and good. It often is pernicious and bad. Young women judge of men very much by what married women say concerning men. If they speak of men as virtuous and pure, as noble and generous; if they can talk of their husbands as of men who have honored them with their love, and whose kindness blesses their daily life, then will the maiden of a pure heart believe that her dream is real, and that the man of her choice is pure; whose heart is free and open as her own; all of whose thoughts may be avowed; who is incapable of wronging the innocent, or still further degrading the fallen,—a man, in short, whose brute nature is entirely subject to the impulses of his better self. Such men there are in countless numbers, who have kept themselves free from stain, and who can look the purest maiden in the eye and not shun the glance. Through God's grace they have been saved from the path full of peril, and desire nothing more than to share the confidence and friendship of the pure. If, on the other hand, the unmarried are assured by the married that, "if they knew men as they do,"—that is, by being married to them,—"they would not expect continence or self-government from them;" if mothers permit their daughters to mingle freely with the dissipated and vile because of rank or wealth, and when warned that such are not fit companions for a chaste being, reply, "All men are bad sometimes in their life; but give them a pure wife and a home and they will not want to go wrong," then be not surprised if homes are converted into abodes of perpetual sorrow, if not of shame, and the fair young bride is left to weep over the sacrifice of virtue, of honor, and of love, on the altar of an unholy passion. The influence of a pure woman over young women is invaluable.
"Do not forget the unfortunates who dare not cross your guarded way. If it do not suit you to act with those who have organized measures of reform, then hold not yourself excused from acting in private. Seek out these degraded women, give them then tender sympathy, counsel, employment. Take the place of mothers, such as might have saved them originally. If you can do little for those already under the ban of the world,—and the best considered efforts have often failed, from a want of strength in those unhappy ones to bear up against the sting of shame and the frigidness of the world, which makes them seek oblivion again in their old excitements,—you will at least leave a germ of love and justice in their hearts, that will prevent their becoming utterly embittered and corrupt." And you may learn the preventives for those yet uninjured. These will be found in a diffusion of mental culture, simple tastes, best brought by your example, a genuine self-respect, and, above all, the love and fear of a divine in preference to a human tribunal. Let woman live for God and the development of her higher nature,—live so that she can be self-helped, as well as helping,—then if she finds what she needs in man embodied, she will know how to love, and be worthy of being loved. Much is said about the underpay of woman as a cause of temptation. It is for the interests of society that there should be an equality of compensation wherever there is an equality of distribution. It is well for woman to ask herself if she is ready to assume the burdens that come from an equality of compensation, such as giving up the prospect of marriage, or of sharing with man the toil of the field, of the factory, as well as of the house. Would woman be willing to take upon herself the responsibility of planning to economize, of building churches, railroads, of entering into a competition with man?—Woman is dependent, not independent.—For this reason man toils to keep his wife, and is ashamed to have his wife keep him. His pride lies in having his home a joy and his wife a helpmeet, rather than to have his wife a rival and his home empty of happiness.
It is not alone by an excess of passion or of beauty that woman becomes a tempter. The absence of love, and of beauty, sins of omission as well as sins of commission, are sources of temptation. Man desires an educated woman. Intellectually and spiritually she must be able to meet his wants, and render help, or she is a failure. He tires of a useless toy or plaything, and cries out for a helpmeet. Another has said, "The bad housekeeping, and the neglect of domestic duties, on the part of many wives, is, no doubt, attributable to the slovenly tenements, and inadequate providings, and careless neglect of the husbands. But more husbands, we fear, are driven to shiftlessness and discouragement—driven to the saloon and gambling-room—by the extravagance or inefficiency, the disorderly arrangements or badly prepared food, the irritating complaints or exacting demands of those who preside in the home. None but a man of low instinct, of base passion, of weak character, will turn away from and neglect a home where order reigns, where a cheerful smile, well-prepared food, neatly arranged table await him; where a word of cheer greets him, and where patient forbearance is exercised, even with his irregularities and faults. It is the part of woman to win; and her winning arts should not be laid aside when she grasps what she has considered a prize. She should seek in every way to win, beyond the possibility of loss, the abiding love, the unwavering confidence, the undoubting respect of her husband. If woman would be man's equal, she must challenge the equality by proving herself mistress of those arts that minister the highest comfort to his physical nature, as well as to his affections, that further his interests as well as his happiness."
Alas! how many fail here because they know not how to make a home pleasant. Such are the slaves of servants and the creatures of circumstances. In some cases the fault is man's, in others it is woman's. Perhaps in all cases both are somewhat at fault; yet the responsibility rests on woman to make home a delight. When she fails she must take the consequences. Failure with her is often a mistake. She knows no better. Ignorance, in some, is wilful, but in more it is educational. Their mothers, through ill-judged kindness, mistaken notions of life, or careless neglect, suffered them to grow up without the necessary practical training; or else they failed before them; and inefficiency and slatternliness, bad cooking, and worse manners, are the patrimony bequeathed in perpetuity to the daughters. Happy is the man who has a wife capable of getting a better meal than the hired help, and whose smile is the light of his dwelling! Sometimes a girl knows how to win, but cares not to keep. She gives place in her heart, and a welcome in her home, to others more readily than to the one she has given her plighted troth. This is criminal. A woman who does it is a suicide. She is bent on ruin, and will find the pit ere long.
Consider her wiles of speech. Mystery here brings ruin to man as it brought ruin to woman. Young ladies of culture and of refinement are not ashamed to employ the language of the Parisian to lead astray the companion of her life. God curse the language and the forms of speech whose words drop with the very gall of death, which revel in elegant dress as near the edge of indecency as is possible without treading over the boundary! Her wiles of speech are bad, but her wiles of love are the most perilous of all. Man needs love. He is fond of it. It is his joy, come from whence it may. Love is the mind's light and heat. A mind of the greatest stature, without love, is like a huge pyramid of Egypt—chill and cheerless in all its dark halls and passages. A mind with love, is as a king's palace lighted for a royal festival. Shame that the sweetest of all the mind's attributes should be suborned to sin. Think of it! each wile, rightly used, is a power given to woman to make her man's helpmeet, and wrongly used will make her man's destroyer.
Some one asked a minister for his conception of the personal appearance of the devil. His reply was, "A false-hearted and well-dressed gentleman, or a vain and fashionable woman." Woman was Satan's first ally, though he worked in ambush, and approached man in concealment. In the wisdom of his choice we discover the peril of woman. It may be well briefly to review the public manner in which Satan employs her talent for the ruin of man and in opposing the rule of Christ.