source is known by the waters that flow from it, so will the moral
life partake of the character and bear the impress of the heart
whence it proceeds. This is true of youth in general, but more
particularly so of young ladies.




CHAPTER III.


THE HEART OF WOMAN; THE NECESSITY OF REGULATING IT DURING YOUTH.

The most humble, most chaste, most holy of women, Blessed Mary ever
Virgin, she who is the ornament and glory of her sex who, in
consequence of her privilege of being the mother of God, merited to
be elevated so high above all creatures, revealed to us the existence
of a faculty in the soul, unknown to the philosophers, undiscovered
by the saints, unspoken of by the prophets. This faculty is more
conspicuous in woman than in man, for it exercises in her a decisive
influence which extends over the entire period of her life. Hence,
God, "who ordereth all things, sweetly," (Wisdom, viii. 1), desired
that its existence should be made known to us by a woman, and that,
too, while she was visiting another woman.

In answer to the salutation of her cousin St. Elizabeth, Mary,
filled with the Holy Ghost, breaks forth into that sublime Canticle,
called the "Magnificat:" "He hath scattered the proud," she sings,
"_mente cordis sui;_" literally, "in the _mind_ of their
heart." This is the faculty of which I speak; that _mind_, that