s
wanting.

It is the office of woman, her high privilege indeed,

"To heal and pacify distempered spirits."

Can she then sufficiently dread and shun dissensions with her own sex?
Allow that an associate has reached that eminence, which you could not
attain, be it in learning, affection, or fortune. Will you foster toward
her a spirit of animosity? Is there one of this sex alive to the noble
capacities of her nature, that can descend so low, as to seek redress
for fancied or real injustice, by girding on the armor of retaliation
and resentment? Remember Jesus, and you will bow to the wrongdoer
meekly, magnanimously.

Nor should our young friend yield to a disposition to Flatter her
favorites, any sooner than one to depreciate a rival. We may praise
another simply to gain a return in kind. Or we may do it thoughtlessly,
and by impulse. In each of these cases, we not only injure her by
inflating her vanity, but wrong our own souls. Nor are all commendations
right, which spring from a desire to gratify others. Ill-timed or
excessive praise often does serious evil. It is only that which is just,
rational, and moderate, that we should bestow on a friend. Avoid
flattery; express precisely the approbation you feel, professing no
affection you do not possess, and promising no fidelity, that
circumstances may forbid you to manifest, and you will then speak the
words due to merit, perfectly free from falsity, and acceptable in the
sight of God.

To speak now of the positive view of our subject, I would name a few
virtues and graces, of primary concern in a young woman's intercourse
with society.

There should be Gentleness of Manner. In this term we include not simply
external appearances, though these are of no trivial importance. If
manner impress and accomplish much in the sterner sex, as we all have
felt, it is in the other, almost omnipotent. Dr. Bowring informs us
that, in his recent travels in the East, he found the Samaritan, Syrian,
and all Mussulman, ladies were accustomed to veil themselves in public.
He was asked whether "the English women were so immodest as to walk out
with uncovered faces?" Thus highly are gentleness and modesty prized by
the heathen. Should they be less so by us? What object more revolting
than a coarse and rude woman? In such we expect,--and we are seldom
disappointed,--to find a rough character, a destitution of the gentle
spirit of goodness and Christ. Will not one of this class fl