that is actively useful can be unhappy. What do you see around
you? Many, I admit, who are not so happy as we should like them to be;
but in most cases, if we could fully investigate the matter, it would
perhaps be found to have arisen from their thinking too much about
themselves and not enough for others. But, on the other hand, it not
infrequently happens, when a woman is left, and sees that the support
and welfare of herself and children depend on her own exertions, she
is enabled to so successfully put forth her energies and to employ her
talents which, till she needed them, she hardly knew she possessed, as
to surprise both herself and the most sanguine of her friends.

Now, it must be confessed that we are fallen creatures, and therefore
prone to evil. We are consequently always in danger of going wrong
and forming bad habits, but our Heavenly Father watches over us at all
times and gives us power to "refuse the evil and choose the good." We
are, I know full well, too much inclined to yield to evil influences;
still, as we always have divine aid if we implore it, I am not sure
that, on the whole, it is not as easy to acquire good habits as bad
ones. This much is certain, that whichever we acquire, they are likely
to remain with us and are not easily to be got rid of.

Among the subjects deserving attention as affecting our happiness is
one on which, perhaps, I am not entitled to say much. I refer to
dress. Now, I hold it to be a duty for people to dress well--that is,
according to their position, means, and age; and this not so much for
their own sakes as for the sake of giving pleasure to others. It is, I
admit, difficult to determine how much of one's income should be
devoted to dress, but I think few will deny that at present dress
occupies too much time, attention, and money. For my own part, I
confess I am most affected by female dress, and although certainly I
like to see women well dressed, and would rather see them a little too
fine than slovenly, I am often pained at witnessing the extravagance
and, to me, ridiculous taste exhibited. Whenever I see a handsome and
expensive dress trailing in the dirt, I regard it as culpable waste
and in bad taste, and when I see it accidentally trodden on I am not
sorry. I am inclined to believe that many women can hardly find time
or opportunity to perform any useful duty; they have quite as much as
they, poor things, can do to take care of their dress. I also believe