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168 them that, despite the remonstrances of parental love, despite the legal claims of those whose need is greater than their own, despite the stain upon their father's house and name, if found unable to discharge his lawful debts, her rule is absolute, and she must be obeyed. Yes, I know it does come home to the hearts of the feeling and the kind, to make these frequent and these urgent applications, where they know that the pecuniary means of the family are small; and sometimes they do try to go forth into company again, with a dress not cut according to the newest mode. But fashion is revengeful, as she is cruel; and she turns upon them with the ridicule of gayer friends, and asks whether the garb they wear was the costume of the ark; and, instantly, all that is noble, and generous, and disinterested in their nature, sinks, and they become subject, perhaps, to as much real suffering for the time, as if they had destroyed a mother's peace, or involved a father in pecuniary difficulty.

But let them not be discouraged at thus being deprived for an instant of moral dignity, and moral power. The better feelings of their nature will rally, the vitality of higher principles will revive, if they will but make a stand against the enemy; or, rather, if they will but reflect, that fashion, under whose tyranny they are quailing, is, in reality, an enemy, and not a friend. She is an enemy, because she has incited them to much evil, and to no good. She is an enemy, because when they sink into poverty or distress, led on by her instigation, she immediately forsakes, and leaves them to their fate. Fashion never yet was on the side of suffering, of sorrow, or of want. Her favourite subjects are the successful, the arrogant, the vain-glorious; the objects of her contempt are the humble, the afflicted, and the poor.

Let the young, then, bear about with them the