SERMON TO YOUNG LADIES.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VII, Issue 141, 14 June 1872, Page 2

SERMON TO YOUNG LADIES.

Now, ladies, I will preach you just a little sermon about an inch long. I don't often preach, but in this case nothing but a sermon will do. Firstly, — You are perfect idiots to go

on in this way. Your bodies are the most beautiful of God's creations. la the Continental galleries I saw groups of people gathered about the pictures of women. Ie was not passion ; the gazers were just us likely to be women as men ; it was because of the wonderous beauty of a woman's body. Now stand with me at my office window

and see a lady pass. There goes one ! - Isn't that 'a pretty looking object? A big hump, three big lumps, a wilderness of crimps and frills, a hauling up of the dress here and there, an enormous mass of hair or bark piled on the top of her head, surmounted by a little hat, ornamented with bits of lace, bird's tails, &c. The shop windows tell us all day long of the paddings, whalebones, and steel springs which occupy most of the space within the outside rig. In the name of simple, sweet sentiments which cluster about a borne, I would ask, how is a man to fall in love with such a piece of compound, doubled and twisted, touch-me-not artificiality, as you see in that wriggling curiosity there ? Secondly, — With that wasp waist squeezing your lungs, waist, stomach, and ' vital organs one half their natural size, and with that long tail dragging on the »round, how can any man who knows that life is made of use, of service, of work, how cau he take such a partner ? He must be desperate, indeed, to unite himself for life with such a fettered, halfbreathing ornament. Thirdly, — Your bad dress and lack of exercise lead to bad health, and men fear that instead of a helpmate, they would get an invalid to take care of. This bad health in you, just as in men, makes the mind as well as the body fuddled and effeminate. I know you giggle freely and use big adjectives, such as "splendid," " awful," but then this doesn't deceive us; we see through it all. You are superficial, affected, silly ; you have none of that womanly strength and warmth which are so attractive to man. My deßr girls, you must, if you would get husbands, and decent ones, dress in plain, neat, becoming garments, and talk like sensible sisters. You say that most sensible men are crazy after these butterflies of fashion. I beg pardor, it is not so. Occasionally a man of brilliant success may marry a silly weak woman ; but to say that the most sensible men choose women, without sense is simply absurd. Nineteen times out of twenty sensible men marry sensible women. I grant you that in company they are very likely to chat and toy with those overdressed and forward creatures, but they don't ask any of thera to go to the altar with them. Fourthly, — Among the young men in the matrimonial market, only a few are independently rich; and such very rarely make good husbands. But the number of those who are just beginning in life, who are filled with ambition, who desire to have a future, is very large. These are worth having. But they will not, they dare not, ask you to join thera, while they see you so idle, silly, and gorgeously attired. Let them see that you are industrious, economical, with habits that secure health aud strength, that your life is earnest and real, that you would be willing to begin at the beginning in life with the man you consent to marry — then marriage will become the rule, and not as now the exception.— -Sydney Paper.