ear no richer than you are; if you cannot afford
to vary your dress according to the rapidly--varying fashions, have the
moral courage to confess this in action. Nor will your appearance lose
much by the sacrifice. If your dress is in accordance with true taste,
the more valuable of your acquaintance will be able to appreciate that,
while they would be unconscious of any strict and expensive conformity
to the fashions of the month. Of course, I do not speak now of any
glaring discrepancy between your dress and the general costume of the
time. There could be no display of a simple taste while any singularity
in your dress attracted notice; neither could there be much additional
expense in a moderate attention to the prevailing forms and colours of
the time,--for bonnets and gowns do not, alas, last for ever. What I
mean to deprecate is the laying aside any one of these, which is
suitable in every other respect, lest it should reveal the secret of
your having expended nothing upon dress during this season. Remember how
many indulgences to your generous nature would be procured by the price
of, a fashionable gown or bonnet, and your feelings will provide a
strong support to your duty. Another way in which you may successfully
practise economy is by taking care of your clothes, having them repaired
in proper time, and neither exposing them to sun or rain unnecessarily.
A ten-guinea gown may be sacrificed in half an hour, and the indolence
of your disposition would lead you to prefer this sacrifice to the
trouble of taking any preservatory precautions, or thinking about the
matter at all. Is this right? Even if you can procure money to satisfy
the demands of mere carelessness, are you acting as a faithful steward
by thus expending it? I willingly grant to you that some women are so
wealthy, placed in situations requiring so much representation, that it
would be degrading to them to take much thought about any thing but the
beauty and fashion of their clothes; and that an anxiety on their part
about the preservation of, to them, trifles would indicate meanness and
parsimoniousness. Their office is to encourage trade by a lavish
expenditure, conformable to the rank in life in which God has placed
them. Happy are they if this wealth do not become a temptation too hard
to be overcome! Happier those from whom such temptations, denounced in
the word of God more strongly than any other, are entirely averted!

This is your position;