This quick essay, credited to “Mrs. Stowe,” doubtless will appear quaint to many readers. It appeared throughout Christian Commonplace’s first 12 months of publication. (A brief merchandise about memorizing Outdated Testomony books so as follows this one.)
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‘The True Commonplace of Gown’
Aug. 4, 1866; p. 3
We’re all the time extreme after we sacrifice the upper magnificence to acquire the decrease one. A lady who will sacrifice home affection, conscience, self-respect, honor, to like of gown, all of us agree loves gown an excessive amount of. She loses the true and better great thing about womanhood for the decrease great thing about gems and flowers and colours. A woman who sacrifices to decorate all her time, all her energy, all her cash, to the neglect of the cultivation of her thoughts and coronary heart, and to the neglect of the claims of others on her helpfulness, is sacrificing the upper to the decrease magnificence. Her fault shouldn’t be the love of magnificence, however loving the mistaken and inferior variety.
. . . You’re keen on gown an excessive amount of once you care extra to your outward adornings than to your inward tendencies, when it afflicts you extra to have your gown torn than to have misplaced your mood; if you find yourself extra troubled by an ill-fitting robe, than by a uncared for responsibility—if you find yourself much less involved at having made an unjust remark, or unfold a scandalous report, than having worn a passe bonnet—if you find yourself much less involved on the considered being discovered on the final nice feast with out the marriage garment, than at being discovered on the get together to-night within the vogue of final 12 months. No Christian lady, as I view it, ought to permit it to take up all of three crucial issues, viz: all her time, all her energy, all her cash. Who ever does this, lives not the Christian however the Pagan life—worships not on the Christian altar of our Lord Jesus, however on the shrine of the decrease Venus of Corinth and Rome. — Mrs. Stowe.
(Picture from the “The London and Paris women’ journal” (1866) courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.)
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Slightly bit decrease in that very same column, on the identical web page, an merchandise carried this headline:
Books of the Outdated Testomony
The next if dedicated fastidiously to reminiscence by the youngsters, and repeated often, will allow them throughout all their lives to bear in mind the order of the books of the Outdated Testomony. Only a few are in a position to hold the order with out some assist of this sort:
The nice Jehovah spake to us
In Genesis and Exodus;
Leviticus and Numbers see
Adopted by Deuteronomy.
Joshua and Judges sway the land,
Ruth gleans a sheaf with trembling hand;
Samuel, and quite a few Kings seem,
Whose Chronicles we questioning hear;
Ezra and Nehemiah now
Esther the beauteous mourner present;
Job speaks in sighs, David in Psalms,
The Proverbs train to scatter alms.
Ecclesiastes then comes on,
And the candy Tune of Solomon.
Isaiah, and Jeremiah then
With Lamentations takes his pen.
Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea’s lyres
Swell Joel, Amos, Obadiah’s.
Subsequent Jonah, Micah, Nahum, come,
And lofty Habakkuk finds room.
Whereas Zephaniah, Haggai calls,
Rapt Zechariah builds his partitions;
And Malachi with clothes hire,
Concludes the traditional Testomony.