ot unmindful of dress and manners.

The sin of this matter lies in a breathless devotion to outward
adorning. This is fatal to the inward and Christian graces. She who
foregoes a reasonable regard to economy, for the sake of dress, is
decidedly culpable. We are told that "a collection of three hundred and
fifty pounds was once made for the celebrated Cuzzona, to save her from
absolute want; but that she no sooner got the money than she laid out
two hundred pounds of it in the purchase of a shell cap, which was just
then in fashion!" Something of the same prodigality is often exhibited,
only on a smaller scale. She who thinks more of her apparel than of her
language, more of adopting the latest fashion than of conversing with
intelligence, and demeaning herself as becomes a disciple of Jesus, must
beware of her moral exposure.

Let it not be conceived, that whatever of error woman exhibits in her
attachment to fashion is to be charged on her sex alone. The other sex
have, in too many instances, extolled and idolized foreign modes of
dress. It has been to gratify man,--and he knew the disposition that
prompted it,--that such folly and excess have been shown in her apparel.
Yet will I say that it is not so with us all; few, very few of our sex
are propitiated by an extravagant care for fashions. Most men are pained
by the attenuated forms and pale countenances of those, who are slaves
to every new mode of dress. They prefer the bloom of health, and the
evidences of good taste, good sense, purity and propriety, seen in a
well-dressed female, to the caricatures sanctioned only by the name of
some foreign city.

The care of a young lady's health is another interest affected much by
her entrance into society. The little girl is a picture of bloom and
buoyancy. And why? Because fashion permits her to sport in the freedom
of nature. The laws of God are allowed, in her case, to be so regarded
as to secure her health. But for our young lady, it were rude and
disreputable in her to indulge in those bodily exercises essential to
her physical wellbeing.

There is much ignorance, I am aware, among this sex, in reference to the
conditions of health. Yet more are they who sin in this respect against
light, than in the absence of it. Is it not known that the exposure of
the feet to wet and cold, in shoes genteelly thin, may induce disease?
Can it be, that the multitudes, who compress the lungs and chest into
half the space designed f