Chapter LXXVI: Great Need of Prudence

ON our coast, which is so stormy and dangerous, there are many safe harbors where the mariner feels secure against the violence of every storm. But when he approaches these harbors he is wide awake and pays the closest attention to every movement of his vessel; and good reason he has for it too. Here is a shoal on this side, there is a ledge of rocks on the other; here the channel takes a short turn; at no time of his whole voyage is there so much danger of shipwreck as now. He must not relax his vigilance an instant until he drops anchor in the very spot where he will remain.

So it is when about to anchor one’s self for life in the state of matrimony. The whole approach to this state is filled with the greatest danger, and requires untiring vigilance to get through it safely without a wreck of happiness in this world and the next.

And this danger is greater, it seems to me, in this country and at this time than at any other. Why? Because in other countries the intercourse between young people is more restrained and guarded than it can be here. It is there settled by custom that they shall not visit so often, or be so much together as is the case here. The parents or friends have far more to say and to arrange there, while here more depends on the parties themselves. Many a girl has no father or mother to look out for her and advise her. She has to manage everything for herself the best she can. On all these accounts far more discretion and prudence is required on the part of a young woman in this country than anywhere else.

There is a peculiar modesty and shyness which springs up in the heart when one changes from the state of childhood to that of womanhood. No doubt God has given this to be a safeguard at the most dangerous period of life. When one could, as a light-hearted, innocent girl, speak and act with freedom, she must, as a young woman, keep an eye upon all her actions, that nothing may go beyond the bounds of propriety and be a snare to herself or to others.

Many women of this age moving about in the world are forming acquaintances and intimacies more or less close, and their entire future depends upon what they are.

Let us lay down, then, a few rules of prudence as to how she should conduct herself in that dangerous period of life which extends from the time of her arriving at mature age until she is married.

Let us see what intimacies it would be prudent for her to form, and how she should behave herself during the period of the courtship.