Serious Hours of a Young Lady

St. John, the Apostle, addressing those who have not yet passed the age of adolescence, says in his first Epistles: _"I write unto you, because ... you have overcome the wicked...

The history of the fall of man, caused by Eve, and of his restoration, brought about by Mary, is a subject of grave consideration for women of serious minds, for women who have...

God, who has created all things by His own power, conserves them by an act of His divine love; and by His providence leads them to their appointed destiny through ways conformab...

In the natural order of things, man, after having obeyed his parents in his youth, becomes in turn the head of another family which he must govern by the authority of his word a...

A vast number of people unfortunately labor under the false impression that woman's great work and duty consists in making her company agreeable and pleasing to all. This error...

AFTER having created man God saw that it was not good for him to be alone; and in order to console and cheer him in his solitude He took from his side, near his heart, the mater...

Most appropriately indeed was the name _piety_ given by our fathers in the faith to the sentiment which elevates the mind and heart to God. It establishes an intimate union betw...

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...

It will perhaps seem strange to you to be warned in the bloom of youth against a sentiment that seems to be reserved for that period of life when delinquents, through the infini...

POPE ST. LEO, in one of his homilies on the nativity of our Saviour, says, in addressing man: "O man, recognize thy dignity!" We might, with all due propriety, address these sam...

Meditation and reflection are two words that express two shades of difference of the same idea. In meditation we consider supernatural things pertaining to our eternal salvation...

The world is like some objects which, when seen from afar, deceive the eyes and allure the imagination; but on approaching or touching them their charms vanish. It is like those...

PILATE, on presenting to the Jews, Jesus crowned with thorns, and clothed in a purple garment, said: "_Behold the Man!_" Jesus frequently calls Himself the Son of man in the Gos...

The most important period of life is that in which we are the better able, in making good use of the present, to repair the past and prepare for the future; that period holds th...

The imagination, that active agent of the senses, is the bee which, in its continual excursions, gathers from the flower-cups the sweet scented dust from which, by due process,...

If the wisdom of nations, which loves to find expression in the proverbs, teaches us that a man may be known by knowing the company that he frequents; we can say with the same a...

The age of youth is the age of illusions, ardent desires, and fanciful hopes. Youth is like a fairy whose magical wand evokes the most graceful images and the most alluring phan...

An undue attention to toilet is a dangerous rock for many women who, otherwise remarkable for their grave deportment, are sometimes greater slaves than the most frivolous women...

CURIOSITY is a defect that seems to be particularly inherent to the heart of woman, and which, when not properly governed, never fails to entail the most disastrous consequences...

IF the life of a woman of the world were proposed as a model, and, after having carefully examined all her occupations, you would discover what would be hard for you to be convi...

Since a predisposition to good and evil is found among persons of all classes and ages; and as this predisposition is especially strong at your age, when the sympathies are most...

To the rule given in the foregoing chapter may be added another of equal importance in the selection of suitable books to read. Generally speaking, all books that draw too much...