You may well
doubt this ability the next time you see an intelligent and pretty
girl avoid the glance of a former friend who is now miserable and weak;
and you may question its very existence in the wretched and outcast
one. Ah! but who can judge, or even know, the inner life of one's past
acquaintances? It is not for you, nor for me, to slight, to scorn,
to condemn the fallen. Of this we are sure,--that no beauty, no
intelligence, can compare with womanliness; and that no girl, weak
and wicked as she may be, is utterly lost to a return to womanliness.
May I here appeal to you, dear girls, to hasten this return? May I
urge you not to slight even the sinful? As you are girls with most
precious endowments, remember to encourage the growth of these gifts
in other girls. Then will womanhood seem even more blessed than now,--
when girls defend it and purify it. A girl may have all the privileges
that a boy has; a woman, all the rights that a man now has in
excess,--pray, do not let us stand in the way of such favors!--but
the fact remains that "woman is not undeveloped man, but diverse";
and the one thing she owes to the world, to herself, to her Maker,
is a reverence for her own sex. Girls, I repeat, you cannot sufficiently
realize your obligations to your own kind. Because you are girls and
not boys, women and not men, oh, try to be loyal to girls and women!
Pay homage to womanhood; adorn it, place sacrifices upon its altars,
rejoice in unceasing service to it, exalt it by every worthy endeavor!
This reverence for woman is the first and truest step towards
womanliness.
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