Compare a taste for dress with a taste for knowledge, culture,
virtue, and piety. Dress up an ignorant young woman in the "height of
fashion"; put on plumes and flowers, diamonds and gewgaws; paint her
face, girt up her waist, and I ask you, if this side of a painted and
feathered savage you can find anything more unpleasant to behold. And
yet such young women we meet by the hundred every day on the street
and in all our public places. It is awful to think of.

9. DRESS AFFECTS OUR MANNERS.--A man who is badly dressed, feels
chilly, sweaty, and prickly. He stammers, and does not always tell the
truth. He means to, perhaps, but he can't. He is half distracted about
his pantaloons, which are much to short, and are constantly hitching
up; or his frayed jacket and crumpled linen harrow his soul, and quite
unman him. He treads on the train of a lady's dress, and says, "Thank
you", sits down on his hat, and wishes the "desert were his dwelling
place."

[Illustration]

* * * * *

BEAUTY.

"She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies:
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet her in aspect and in her eyes;
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies."
--BYRON.

1. THE HIGHEST STYLE OF BEAUTY.--The highest style of beauty to be
found in nature pertains to the human form, as animated and lighted
up by the intelligence within. It is the expression of the soul that
constitutes this superior beauty. It is that which looks out of the
eye, which sits in calm majesty on the brow, lurks on the lip, smiles
on the cheek, is set forth in the chiselled lines and features of
the countenance, in the general contour of figure and form, in
the movement, and gesture, and tone; it is this looking out of the
invisible spirit that dwells within, this manifestation of the higher
nature, that we admire and love; this constitutes to us the beauty of
our species.

2. BEAUTY WHICH PERISHES NOT.--There is a beauty which perishes not.
It is such as the angels wear. It forms the washed white robes of the
saints. It wreathes the countenance of every doer of good. It adorns
every honest face. It shines in the virtuous life. It molds the hands
of charity. It sweetens the voice of sympathy. It sparkles on the brow
of wisdom. It flashes in the eye of love. It breathes in the spirit of
piety. It is the beauty of the heaven of heavens. It is that