It is to save you from any such dangers that I earnestly press upon you
the deliberate choice and immediate adoption of a course of life in
which the systematic, conscientious improvement of your mind should
serve as an efficacious preservation from all dangerously exciting
occupations. You should prepare yourself for this deliberate choice by
taking a clear and distinct view of your object and your motives. Can
you say with sincerity that they are such as the following,--that of
acquiring influence over your fellow-creatures, to be employed for the
advancement of their eternal interests--that of glorifying God, and of
obtaining the fulfilment of that promise, "They that turn many to
righteousness shall shine as the stars for ever and ever."[73] If this
be the case, your choice must be a right and a noble one; and you will
never have reason to repent of it, either in this world or the next.
Among the collateral results of this conscientious choice will be a
certain enjoyment of life, more independent of either health or external
circumstances than any other can be, and the lofty self-respect arising
from a consciousness of never having descended to unworthy methods of
amusement and excitement.

To attain, however, to the pleasures of intellectual pursuits, and to
acquire from them the advantages of influence and respect, is quite a
distinct thing from the promiscuous and ill-regulated habits of reading
pursued by most women. Women who read at all, generally read more than
men; but, from the absence of any intellectual system, they neither
acquire well-digested information, nor, what is of far more importance,
are the powers of their mind strengthened by exercise. I have known
women read for six hours a day, and, after all, totally incapable of
enlightening the inquirer upon any point of history or literature; far
less would they be competent to exercise any process of reasoning, with
relation either to the business of life or the occurrences of its social