te
till it is swayed and elevated by genuine piety. No heart is fully happy
till it is imbued with the spirit of piety. No life is all it may and
should be till its motives are baptized in the waters of piety. No soul
is saved till it is transformed by the gracious spirit of this daughter
of the skies. This divine grace of the soul should be sought by every
young woman, and cultivated with the most assiduous care, for without it
she is destitute of the highest beauty and divinest charm and power of
womanhood.

II. Thus cultured and growing morally, the young woman should not forget
to develop her social nature by the hand of prudent culture. She is made
to love; not only to love one being, but all her fellows. Around kindred
spirits should be linked the chain of friendship, and this chain should
be kept bright by gentle and confiding usage. Nothing is more proper
than that young women should learn how to choose friends wisely.
Friendship and love are blind impulses. They need a guardian and guide.
Discretion should be that guide. It is natural for us to love what is
lovely; but as to what is lovely we often differ. What is lovely to one
is not always lovely to another. But there are qualities of mind and
heart that are intrinsically lovely, and about which there can be no
difference of opinion. What is virtuous, good, amiable, high-minded,
generous, self-sacrificing and pure, we all admire. What goes to make a
perfect character, a moralist, a Christian, a wise man or woman, is
agreeable to us all. Now this is what we should love. This is what we
should seek in our friends. It is not a beautiful person, or bland and
polite manners, or any thing that belongs to the exterior being that we
should love. It is inward worth and beauty--loveliness of spirit. Around
the soul should be woven the cords of friendship and love. The outward
is deceitful and perishing. The inward is true and lasting. Our
affections should be taught to fix themselves on the inward. Where we
see inward beauty, there we should fix the seal of our friendship. And
our affections should be taught to conform to this rule. No matter how
attractive the outward person, if inward attractions, such as worth,
wisdom, weight of character are wanting, we should not be moved to love.
The one grand rule is to let worth of mind, beauty of soul, fix our
affections in the social intercourse of life. Young women can not be too
particular in obeying this rule. Their moral