money or property? And is not mental or spiritual labor at least as
valuable as bodily?




CHAPTER XXIII.
VISITING.

Is there no time for relaxation? May there not be passive enjoyments?
Passive enjoyments sometimes wrong. How Christian visits should be
conducted. Duty and pleasure compatible. Passive visits useful to
childhood. Folly of morning calls and evening parties. Bible doctrine
of visiting Abuse of visiting.


But is a young woman to be always actively employed? Is not time to be
allotted her for mere passive enjoyments? May she never unbend her mind
from what is called duty? May she never lay herself, as it were, on the
bosom of her family and friends? May she never seat herself on the
living green, amid roses and violets, or on the mossy bank studded with
cresses or cowslips, and laved by the crystal stream? May she never
view the silver fish as he leaps up, and "dumbly speaks the praise of
God?" May she never wander abroad for the sake of wandering, or ride
for the sake of riding; or gaze on the blue ethereal by day, or the
star-spangled canopy by night?

Far be it from me to say any such thing; for I know not to whom such
exercises, _as such exercises merely_, may or may not be necessary. That
they may be useful to many, cannot be doubted; but that they are far from