Page:The Daughters of England.djvu/279

268 I believe the most dangerous influence, which society exercises upon young women, is derived from worldly-minded persons, of strong common sense, who are fashionable in their appearance, generally correct in their conduct, and amiable and attractive in their manners and conversation. Young women guardedly and respectably brought up see little of vice, and know little of

They are consequently comparatively unacquainted with the beginnings of evil, and still less so with those dark passages of life, to which such beginnings are calculated to lead. It follows, therefore, that, except when under the influence of strong convictions, they may be said to be ignorant of the real necessity of religion. It is but natural then, that those correct and well-bred persons, to whom allusion has been made, who pass on from the cradle to the brink of the grave, treating religion with respect, as a good thing for the poor and the disconsolate, but altogether unnecessary for them, should appear, on a slight examination of the subject, to be living in a much more enviable state, than those who believe themselves called upon to renounce the world and its vanities, and devote their time, and their talents, their energies and their affections, to a cause which the worldly-minded regard at best, as visionary and wild.

I have spoken of such persons passing on to the brink of the grave, and I have used this expression, because, I believe the grave has terrors, even to them; that when one earthly hold after another gives way, and health declines, and fashionable friends fall off, and death sits beckoning on the tomb-stones of their newly buried associates and relatives; I believe there is often a fearful questioning, about the realities of eternal things, and chiefly about the