Serious Hours of a Young Lady

one so, namely: that there are women so inconsiderate as to feast their minds on such frivolities, so forgetful of their dignity as to make it subservient to such misery, so trifling as to make a seri

der which you so justly deplore in others; you will be captured in those windings which have proved fatal fastnesses to women of other days. There remains no choice between t

much as possible the order by which it is governed. This estrangement, this disgust with nature, haunts her wherever she goes, even in the making of her toilet, even in the employment of her time. She converts

ithout reserve to His glory. When heavy curtains screen her restless slumber from the sun's obtrusive light, the pious daughter of St. Vincent de Paul descends into the folds

tian family. It is then that her day begins, as also the series of the grave occupations that are destined to fill it. The time is short and scarcely suffices to prepare herself for the evening amusements; all her energies are now employed to give herself that external grace and charm necessary to render her conspicuous in the joyous ci

row or share it with her. I understand and esteem the woman who, impressed by the superior wisdom and exemplary piety of another woman, goes to her for advice, devoting with pleasure her leisure hours to that end. I see in all these circumstances a motive that is serious, honorable, praiseworthy, and capable of acting upon a noble heart and an elevated intelligence. But, among the visits made by worldly women; how few there are that are prompted by such motives! The greater part of those women visit with no other view than to pass the time, to pander to their own vanity and curi

ld your true model! Compare this visit with yours, and judge yourselves according to it. Compare your motives with those of Mary. Compare your conversations with that sublime conversation of which the sacred writer has given us a fragment, being the most sublime canticle that has ever been uttered by any intellige

rtue beloved of God,-the virtue which secures His love and assistance; she extols the happiness of those who thirst for justice and truth, deploring at the same time the spiritual poverty and indigence of those who are puffed up with self-conceit. The worldly woman, on the contrary, seeks in her conversations to flatter her vanity and pride by parading the empty resourc

he contrary, you will be sadly disappointed when, at a more advanced age, you will clearly see that this is a very mild and subdued picture of what is true and real. Your

you have of her follies, may never feel the desire of adding to what you already know, the fatal knowledge imparted by experience! That you may never forget these words of St. John: Love not