health of your bodies, and become competent of making yourselves useful, as well as agreeable, to those with whom you may hereafter be connected.

CHAPTER VII

DRESS.

It would appear from the admonitions of the Apostles Paul and Peter,* that the ladies, in their day, were in the habit of arraying and ornamenting their persons, in a manner which these teachers deemed rather indecorous. As the precautions of the apostles, upon this subject, were not extended to men, it is supposed that females in ancient times, were more given to excess in dress, than the other sex. And it is sometimes thought that these distinctive characteristics of the sexes, continue to the present day. Without pretending to decide upon this point, I must be permitted to say, that the time, attention, and expense, bestowed on dress, by many females, give no inconsiderable strength to the above supposition. But allowing it to be true, that females are more inclined to excess in dress than men, the cause I suppose to exist, not so much in

1 Tim. ii. 9. 1 Pet. iii. 3, 4.

any greater degree of inherent vanity or love of display, as in the disparity in their condition and occupations. Men are engaged, the greater proportion of the time, in the business transactions, the stirring scenes of public life; and their minds being thus absorbed, are not so liable to give much importance to the trivial subject of dress. But females, being debarred, to a great extent, by the usages of society, from participating in those busy affairs that are of a public character, are thrown upon the immediate resources of the imagination, to supply this deficiency. And, moreover, believing their prosperity depends much upon their exterior appearance, they have been compelled, as it were, to allow dress to form an important item in their occupation and their thoughts.

That due attention should be given to dress by females, and that, in this manner, by a judicious display of correct taste, they can improve their appearance and personal attractions, are indisputably true. But ladies should know, if they are not already aware of it, that there is such a thing as intemperance in dress!—that, like every other blessing of Providence, when dress is indulged in to excess, when the love of it degenerates into a passion, it becomes an evil, entailing misfortune and wretchedness. Excess is intemperance. And that ladies sometimes dress to excess, can not be doubted by those who are blessed with sight.

Many evils arise from an excessive love of

dress. It absorbs the mind to the neglect of useful avocations. Young ladies would do well to remember that they were not created solely to dress and adorn their persons. There are duties, important responsible duties, which will devolve upon them in the several stations and relationships they will be called to occupy. To be enabled to discharge them faithfully, it is necessary that you should bestow much study, reflection, and forethought upon them. But how can this be done, when the attention is wholly absorbed by dress? The young lady who is wholly intent on adorning her person, is very liable to neglect the more important work of cultivating the mind. It may be noticed, as a general rule, that such ladies think little, and care less, about mental improvement— -so that while without, all may be dazzling and perfect, within there is nought but a moral and mental waste, where lurks an insidious foe to happiness.

many

An excessive love for dress, leads to extravagance in other respects. The lady who deems it an object of the highest importance to float upon the very crest of the ebbing and flowing tide of fashionable dress, will imagine it essentially necessary that an equal style should be observed in all that pertains to her. If she enters the marriage state, houses, and furniture, and equipage, must correspond with dress, and she plunges into needless expenditures, which often end in ruin. How many who have started in life with the

fairest prospects, have speedily been brought to bankruptcy and poverty, by an inordinate love of display.

An intemperate attachment to dress, is destructive to health, as it invariably leads to a mode of dress, directly at war with the construction and wants of the human body. It is a fact no less shocking than true, that thousands of female in the United States, are annually hurried to an early grave, solely by those torturous improprieties in dress, which are dictated by fashion. Every well informed physician will bear witness to the correctness of this declaration. It is truly surprising that young ladies, who possess the ordinary powers of reflection granted to rational beings, will deliberately persevere, in face of the startling, horrid array of facts before them, and contrary to the admonitions of the enlightened, the wise, and the prudent, in dressing in such a manner as to undermine the most vigorous constitutions, induce painful diseases, and hasten premature death! There is an infatuation in regard to this evil, that is wholly unaccountable.* If young ladies will not listen to the advice of friends, or the warning of physicians, I beg them to open an ear to that sepulchral voice which comes up from myriads of "the early dead," who have been consigned to the cold grave, by their miserable slavery to the cruelties of fashion!

The reader can not mistake the evil to which I refer, viz., tight lacing.