“The soul, that goodness like to this adorns
    Holdeth it not concealed;
    But, from her first espousal to the frame,
    Shows it, till death, revealed. 
    Obedient, sweet, and full of seemly shame,
    She, in the primal age,
    The person decks with beauty; moulding it
    Fitly through every part. 
    In riper manhood, temperate, firm of heart,
    With love replenished, and with courteous praise,
    In loyal deeds alone she hath delight. 
    And, in her elder days,
    For prudence and just largeness is she known;
    Rejoicing with herself,
    That wisdom in her staid discourse be shown. 
    Then, in life’s fourth division, at the last
    She weds with God again,
    Contemplating the end she shall attain;
    And looketh back, and blesseth the time past.”—­Dante.

[Footnote 6:  James Martineau.]

[Footnote 7:  Channing.]

A Good Time.

We sometimes hear people lamenting the dangers of this age as regards unsettled views in religion, while others lament that girls neglect home duties for outside work.

I am not at all sure that our greatest danger does not lurk in that most modern invention, “a good time,” which, as a disturbing element, is closely related to that other modern institution “week-ends.”

Fifteen or twenty years ago, a self-willed or self-indulgent girl escaped from the monotony of home duties by the door which led into slums and hospitals.  Nowadays the same girl finds that duties can be evaded by the simpler plan of staying at home and having “a good time.”  I do not think this will last, any more than slumming, as a mere fashion, has lasted.  I hope not, for it means that girls have had very full liberty given to them, and that their sense of responsibility has not yet grown in proportion to their freedom.  Just now, pending the growth of that sixth sense, “a good time” is very easily to be had—­at the cost of a little want of consideration for others—­since the elders of to-day are curiously large-hearted in giving freely and asking very little in return.

But it would be an ungenerous nature which took advantage of generosity, and was content to take much and give little.

Surely it is utterly ignoble that any living soul sent into the great battle should ask to pick flowers, while every one worth their salt was hard at work fighting the foe, protecting the weak, nursing the wounded.  I do not believe a girl would do it if she thought twice; every generous instinct would cry out against it.  But a girl may drift into a very selfish pleasure-seeking life, and the tendency of the day is to regard this as a defendable and lawful line of life.  Duty will hold its own with the morally thoughtful and with generous natures, but it is no longer an unquestioned motto for every one as it used to be in Nelson’s days.