Serious Hours of a Young Lady

phantoms. This ignorance of the doleful realities concealed in the future is a gift of divine goodness which, in order that life might not be too bitter, casts a beneficen

, fabricated by the imagination, and which it draws with a perfidious complacency over the object which it behooves us the most to know and avoid-a

oes not wish that we should be deceived in anything. He

llusions and its errors. It is not my wish or design to trouble the present by exaggerated anxiety; but, on the other hand, I do not wish to leave you under a false impression, fed by delusive hopes relative to the future. My desire is that, while enjoying wi

e, to develop in them the heavenly germs which they contain, that you may be enabled to reap at a later time an abundant harvest of virtues, holy joy and merit before God and men. I desire that you may learn to turn to good acc

banks. Age will diminish those waters and deprive their banks of their charm and freshness. The flame of passion, like a burning win

triking, but more solid, which satisfy the mind and heart and attract the complaisant regard of God and the angels. Youth will quickly pass, more quickl

of your destination than to the few fleeting moments it would require to go thither. Youth is not a stopping-place, it is a

e, the value of each thought of your mind, of each sentiment of your heart, with what extreme care

ht; that unguarded glance seemed to you a matter of no import, and which, at an earlier or later period of your life, would have but little consequence. At an earlier age the impression, it is true, would be lively but inconsistent, and the levity of childhood would soon have replaced it by another; later it would be found so superficial and trivial that it would be soon forgo

your life. That sentiment to which you imprudently pandered is perhaps the source of countless fears, regrets, remorse and sorrows. That

s of which you should ignore, and suffered a life of sorrow, repentance, bitterness and anguish: a life which even yet serves to express the sorrow and repentance of imprudent souls who have yielded to the allurements of the senses. And, nevertheless, David had at

material things a livelier image of the goodness of God towards us? And, nevertheless, let the sun shine upon the young and tender flower or vine immediately after a shower of rain, and it will cause them to droop and wither. The reason is quite obvious, for at no time is a being so frail and delicate as at the

ess of development? Are you not aware that the fresh air which you inhale and which purifies and invigorates the blood contains for you the ger

s substance; as it is the respiratory organ of the mind it follows that for the heart, as well as for the lungs, there is an epoch of development which is dangerous, and which, consequently, demands the greatest possible care; it is the epoch of your age at present. An emotion too vivid

that of your guardian angel, nor the care with which he removes you from contact with all that might in any way tarnish the purity of your soul, or trouble its peace and harmo

at flow from it, so will the moral life partake of the character and bear the impress of the hea