Woman, it is your fault if you do not retain the affections of a true and noble man.  Alas, how frequently young men mourn your fickleness, your frivolity, your fondness for show and dress, and your total lack of desire for the more solid attainments which enrich character, and beautify life.  “Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.”  Whoever conforms to the requirements of fashion, at the expense of culture, is false to her high nature, and degrades herself in the estimation of every true man.  A woman is constructed for companionship, and in her normal condition her yearnings are more mental than physical.  It is natural for man to desire to enjoy this God-given boon.  A talented woman, that will talk sense, is the idol of sensible men.  Nothing displeases a true woman more than to waste an evening on a brainless fop.  Nothing is more needless.  Let her develop herself, and she will be sought after by men whose opinions are valuable, and whose love is a recompense.  Better far would it be for women who are poor, to spend their evenings in reading, writing, and study, in familiarizing themselves with those themes of ennobling thought, which will fit them to win love by conversation, by culture, by the graces of refinement, rather than by the outward adorning, by plaiting the hair, and wearing of gold and of costly apparel; “for it is the hidden man of the heart, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.”

Young women need to be reminded of this.  They are in peril.  Exposure lines the paths of those who pass from the factory, or from the workshop, to their little rooms and cheap boarding-houses.  You see it in the leering look of depraved men, and in the atmosphere of crime that contaminates their shops.  They show it by their themes of conversation.  Woman must be resolute, if she would change all this.  Let her be true to herself and to Christ, and there will be no danger.  The condition of women in many of our factory villages is frightful to contemplate, and few seem to have any knowledge of it.  They pass from their factory to their boarding-houses.  Their rooms are cold and cheerless in winter.  There is no common reading-room or sewing-room.  Unless they will suffer from cold, they must retire to their beds, or seek warmth and companionship in the world without.  As a result they are watched by men who care not for their comfort or happiness, but for the gratification of passion and the pleasures of social excitements.  Hence, thousands of good country girls are annually ruined in many of our large factory villages and cities, for the lack of comfortable houses or associations, where talents can be cultivated, piety promoted, and virtue protected.

1. “She gave to her husband, and he did eat.” It was altogether natural.  She was the provider in the home, as he was the keeper of the garden.  She gave him and he ate.  Man fell because of woman’s fall.  A woman can repel a man.  It is difficult for a man to resist the wiles of a woman.  God has placed in woman a fearful power, and devolves unmeasured responsibilities upon her in the home, in society, and in the world.