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158 In the first place, each young woman acting upon this rule, would live for home, trusting that society would take care of its own interests. She would, however, enter into it as a social duty, rather than a personal gratification, and she would do this with kind and generous feelings, determined to think the best she could of her fellow-creatures, and where she could not understand their motives, to give them credit for good ones. She would mix with society, not for the purpose of shining before others, but of adding her share to the general enjoyment; she would consider every one whom she met there, as having equal claims upon her attentions; but her sympathies would be especially called forth by the diffident, the unattractive, or the neglected. Above all, she would remember that for the opportunities thus afforded her, of doing or receiving good, she would have to render an account as a Christian, and a woman; that for every wrong feeling not studiously checked, for every falsehood however trifling or calculated to please, for every moral truth kept back or disguised for want of moral courage to divulge it, for every uncharitable insinuation, for every idle or amusing jest at the expense of religious principle, and for every chance omitted of supporting the cause of virtue however unpopular, or discountenancing vice, however well received, her situation was that of a responsible being, of whom an account of all the good capable of being derived from opportunities like these, would be required.

Need we question for a moment whether such are the feelings, and such the resolutions, of those who enter into society in general. We doubt not but some are thus influenced, and that they have their reward; but with others, old associations and old habits are strong, and they think that one can do nothing against the many; and thus they wait, and wish things were otherwise, but never set about the