d
entered upon his sacred office with a bright promise of usefulness. He
was so much enamored of his own head, that when he walked the street he
carried his hat in his hand much of the way, apparently to wipe his
forehead, or in seeming thoughtfulness, yet all the while to show his
pretty head to the people he met. This weakness soon permeated his whole
character, and rendered it vain, imbecile, trifling, and ignoble. In a
little while he died a ministerial death--and died of nothing but a
beautiful head. God had richly endowed him with brilliant qualities of
mind and great beauty of person, and he returned only vanity and
weakness for these gifts. Oh, how weak is man! Die of Beauty! Die a
moral death, or live a useless, foolish life because he is wickedly vain
of God's gifts! Beauty is full often the nurse of vanity, and vanity is
the bane of womanhood. I am sorry to say it, and more sorry because it
is so. It is a pity that so lovely a gift from the Hand Divine should be
so wickedly perverted. Beauty ought to inspire rather than weaken its
possessor, ought to elevate rather than depress her. And it would, if
woman-life was rightly appreciated, if the woman-soul was rightly
taught, and the woman-heart of humanity rightly awakened to its grand
capacities and duties. Woman is not alone to blame for this strange and
wicked fire kindled on the altar of Beauty. Man is as guilty as she. He
has praised Beauty and foolishly smiled upon it. He has chosen it for
his companion. He has passed by worth in search of Beauty. So he has
helped women to be vain and trifling. He has not sought to ennoble her
heart so much as to weaken it with flatteries. And he together with her
has suffered as a consequence. Man and woman rise and fall together.
What injures or benefits one does the same to the other.

Take fifty of the most beautiful young ladies that any town affords, and
put them in one company. You would of course have the belles of the
town. What would they talk about? What would they think about? What
would they do? They are as richly endowed with mind as any other fifty
girls in town, but how would they show it? Only in an exhibition of
their personal beauty. You know, young women, that common sense would
have to play "hide-and-seek" in that company. You know that follies and
trifles, fooleries, fashions, foibles, and failings, would occupy their
whole minds. Then let fifty of the young men with whom they are in the
habit of asso