Female Piety, Or, the Young Woman's Friend and Guide Through Life to Immortality

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1853. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... transaction, but upon the supposition that Bethuel was dead. It is true the name occurs once in the history, but this probably was a brother. Laban was consulted. There was nothing clandestine in it. And, moreover, it was a marriage in which the claims of religion were considered. On this delicate subject I can not enlarge. If Rebekah showed too great an eagerness for quitting the single state, and somewhat too hasty a decision, from which, however, we have exculpated her, we do not recommend this to you. It may be natural enough to prefer the married to the unmarried state, when an opportunity offers for entering into it. But let not your minds be unduly restless and anxious in realizing the object of your wishes. Avoid all romantic and poetic imaginativeness on this momentous affair. Do not allow yourselves ever to treat it with levity, or to dictate a line of conduct which would look as if you were more anxious to be a wife, than to be qualified for such a state. Never come to the sonslusion that you can not be happy if you are not married, and can not but be happy if you are. Let the multitude of happy maidens, and the equal number of unhappy wives, correct such mistakes, and dispel all the illusions with which the idea of connubialism disturbs the propriety of some young women's conduct. Treat the whole subject not as a matter of poetry and romance, but as one of the gravest realities of life. It is an affair of love, but it is also an affair of prudence. It is a matter of taste, and even of poetic delightful but it is also a matter of judgment and of conscientiousness. It is not a thing to be laughed and joked about, but to be pondered in the deepest recesses of the soul, and prayed over in the most solemn seasons of devotion. It is momentous to b...