Young Woman's Guide to Excellence

<h5 id="id00635">VISITING.</h5> <p id="id00636" style="margin-top: 2em">Is there no time for relaxation? May there not be passive enjoyments? Passive enjoyments sometimes wrong. How Christian visits should be conducted. Duty and pleasure compatible. Passive visits useful to childhood. Folly of morning calls and evening parties. Bible doctrine of visiting Abuse of visiting.</p> <p id="id00637" style="margin-top: 2em">But is a young woman to be always actively employed? Is not time to be allotted her for mere passive enjoyments? May she never unbend her mind from what is called duty? May she never lay herself, as it were, on the bosom of her family and friends? May she never seat herself on the living green, amid roses and violets, or on the mossy bank studded with cresses or cowslips, and laved by the crystal stream? May she never view the silver fish as he leaps up, and "dumbly speaks the praise of God?" May she never wander abroad for the sake of wandering, or ride for the sake of riding; or gaze on the blue ethereal by day, or the star-spangled canopy by night?</p> <p id="id00638">Far be it from me to say any such thing; for I know not to whom such exercises, <i>as such exercises merely</i>, may or may not be necessary. That they may be useful to many, cannot be doubted; but that they are far from being useful, or even innocent, to <i>all</i>, is quite as certain.</p> <p id="id00639">It is certain, I say, that mere passive exercises are not only unnecessary with many, but sometimes wrong. The young woman who is trained, or who has commenced training herself, on truly Christian principles, and who enjoys a tolerable measure of health, will hardly find special seasons of this sort necessary or desirable. She will find sufficient relaxation amid the routine of active life and her daily occupations, and in her labors of love and charity.</p> <p id="id00640">The society, of sisters, brothers, parents, grand-parents—of companions, indeed, of every sort with whom she mingles, at home or at school—will afford her, at times, every enjoyment, even of the passive sort, which she really needs; or which, if she has the true spirit of Christ, she will heartily desire. In her duties to these—nay, even in her very duties to herself—in the kitchen, the garden or the field, she will have ample opportunity of descanting on the beauties and glories of the animal and vegetable world, and on the wonders of the starry heavens. In pruning, and watering, and weeding the vines and plants, she may drink in as much as she pleases of the living green, as well as feast her eyes, anon, on the blue expanse; and in her walks of charity and mercy, whether alone or in company with others, she may also receive the nectar of heaven, as it glistens and invites from Nature's own cup, in as rich draughts as if she were merely lounging, and seeking for pleasure—nay, even in richer ones, by as much as active exercise of body and mind, gives her the better mental and physical appetite.</p> <p id="id00641">It is one of the strongest proofs that we have a benevolent Creator at the head of the world in which we live, that he has made duty and enjoyment perfectly compatible, so that in pursuing the pathway of the former, we almost inevitably make sure of the latter; and it is also equally remarkable, if not an equally strong proof of benevolence, that in seeking enjoyment, as such, without seeking it in the path of duty, we seldom find it—or if found, it is but half enjoyed.</p> <p id="id00642">There is nothing in this world—or hardly any thing, to say the least—which should be done for the mere sake of doing it. We labor not for the sake of laboring, alone; we eat not, and we drink not, for the sake, merely, of eating and drinking—at least we should not, would we obtain the whole benefit of eating and drinking; nor should we even amuse ourselves for the sake alone of the amusement. Double ends are often secured by single means; nay, almost always so. I speak now of the woman, and not of the infant or the child.</p> <p id="id00643">Social visits among friends and neighbors, for the mere sake of the passive enjoyment they afford in the earliest years of infancy, may do exceedingly well as a preparation for the more active and more truly Christian visits of maturer years and later life. They are useful in elevating ourselves and others to a state where such visiting is not so needful to our happiness.</p> <p id="id00644">As to many forms of visiting current among us—such as morning calls, evening parties, and calls of any sort which answer none of the real purposes of visiting—tending neither to make ourselves or any body else wiser or better, but, on the contrary, to make society worse, indirectly—I have never found any apology for them which seemed to me sufficient to satisfy a rational, intelligent, immortal spirit. To come together late in the evening, just to eat and drink together that which ought not to be eaten and drunk at all—or if at all, certainly not at such an hour; to hold conversation an hour or two under the influence of some sort of excitement, physical or moral, got up for the occasion, on topics which are of little comparative importance—of which the most valuable part often is, the inquiry, How do you do? and the consequent replies to it; to trifle the time away till ten, eleven or twelve o'clock, and then go home through the cold, damp atmosphere, perhaps thinly clad, to suffer that night for want of proper and sufficient sleep, and the next day from indigestion, and a thousand other evils; what can be more truly pitiable, not to say ridiculous! Nor is the practice of putting on a new dress—or one which, if not new, we are quite willing to exhibit—and of going to see our neighbors, and staying just long enough to ask how they do, say a few stale or silly things, and prove an interruption and a nuisance, and then going elsewhere—a whit more justifiable, in beings made in the image of God, and who are to be accountable at his eternal bar.</p> <p id="id00645">Let it not be said that I disapprove of visiting, entirely. One of the grounds of condemnation at the final day, is represented in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew, as being—"Ye visited me not;" that is, did not visit in the name and for the sake of the Judge, those whom God has made it a duty no less than a privilege to visit. And can I set myself, with impunity, against that which my Saviour has encouraged, and yet pretend to be one of his followers? What would be more presumptuous? I am not an enemy to visiting, if done with a view to glorify God in the benefit of mankind. Let young women visit, indeed, but lot it be done in a way which will be approved by the Saviour and Judge. But there may be dissipation in the garb of visiting; and it is still oftener nothing more than the garb of indolence.</p> <p id="id00646">It is not visiting, but visiting without a definite or important purpose, to which I object. It is not visiting itself, but the abuse of visiting. Celestial spirits, for aught we know, are much employed in visiting—and shall not man be so? Are we to belong to their society hereafter, and yet not be their <i>associates?</i> Are we to associate with them, and yet remain solitaries? Could such a thing be? Is not man, here and hereafter—as I have already insisted—a social being? And if so, shall not his social nature and social powers be early and successfully developed and cultivated? Let our visits but promote the purposes of benevolence, and nothing can, with propriety, be said against them. I would wage no war on this point, except with selfishness.</p> <h2 id="id00647" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XXIV.</h2> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />