greater faults which men commit. A single feather may be an ornament; but you may be buried under feathers, as effectually as under the baser earth. Each day and hour may seem to be lightly, almost harmlessly spent. As you seek to defend each separate act, we may admit that there is no great harm in it; if really by itself, no harm at all. But a whole winter spent in such a way, months and years, sometimes a whole life, consecrated, nay, desecrated to amusement as the real occupation of the mind and heart, surely we need no harsh words to make the folly and the sinfulness of such a course appear.

The young lady finishes her school days. with the feeling of one who has escaped from thraldom. She has looked forward to the day with longing eyes and exaggerated expectations. Her studies have perhaps been pursued more closely, because the time when she could stop studying was so near. She has labored, as if the whole education of her mind must be compressed into a few years, at the close of which she would be done with books, except

by way of amusement, for ever.

The day comes at last, although deferred by parental command as long as possible, and at the age when the mind is just attaining that maturity of judgment which would make her studies of real use, she passes in a month's time from the discipline of girlhood to the recognized position of a young lady in society. She is now diligently prepared to "come out,” — as though the whole work of in-door education were complete. The parents are given to understand that no expense is to be spared, particularly for her first season, and that every thing depends upon a good impression being now made. The house is thrown open for company, and the game of life fairly begun. Cards and invitations pour in and afford the principal reading, and dress is the all-absorbing subject of thought. Day after day is given to visits of etiquette, to evening receptions, to prolonged consultations about the latest fashion, and to other things which are as nearly nothing as it is in the nature of any thing to be. The night is not spared, but at nine or

ten o'clock a young person's proper time for retiring to rest-the elaborate and longstudied arrangement of dress is complete, and the feverish excitement of the ball-room begun, to be continued with increasing hilarity until the night yields to morning. She returns home too excited to feel weary, but compelled to find, in the early part of the next day, the repose needed for a renewal of the like occupations, which soon grow to- what shall 1 call it but dissipation? In this way weeks and months pass in alternating languor and excitement; in the intense pursuit of pleasure, which is more than half the time falsely so called.

Now the first and most obvious fault to be found with such modes of life is in the lamentable and destructive waste of time. If all this fashionable dissipation were in itself unobjectionable, which is far from the truth, yet is it not a sad thing for a woman to give so much of the best part of her life to trivial amusement? It cannot be called recreation, for it is itself a business which engrosses the

thoughts, occupies nearly all the time, and leaves neither strength nor inclination for any thing else. The young lady under such circumstances may at first have some vague purpose of self-improvement and some general plan of reading, but she will soon find it impracticable, and after a few well-intended but spasmodic efforts, will defer its execution to the close of the season, when she expects to have more time and less interruption. But unfortunately, when the time comes, the inclination is very likely to be gone. Three or four months spent in a continued round of company are a bad preparation for the quiet hours of reading and reflection. The excitement of the mind subsides, as the outward stimulants are withdrawn, and a corresponding lassitude is the inevitable result. The body itself needs rest, and generally speaking, in the fashionable world, several weeks or months, and sometimes the whole summer, must be devoted to recuperate the energies and renew the flow of animal spirits, in preparation for another season, in which the same follies will be repeated.

How undignified, may I not say how unchristian, is such a life! How completely it must unfit those who follow it for the duties and the enjoyment of home! What room does it leave for intellectual self-culture, or religious self-discipline? Who can wonder that the young, who pass directly from their school days to such a career as this, never attain maturity of character, but continue, even after they have become wives and mothers, to devote themselves to the pursuit of pleasure, the willing devotees of fashion? What wonder is it that female education is at so low a mark, and woman's influence so small compared with what it should be when so many are thus neglectful of their own improvement and eager in the pursuit of trifles!

A second objection to the mode of life now described is in the extravagance to which it leads. This is a great and increasing evil among us. There scarcely seems to be any limit to the cost of living required by fashionable life. Each one tries to outdo the other, until a style of dress and entertainment is es