anticipates the afflictions and dismay which his lawless crimes produce, in the bosoms of virtuous retirement. He thinks little about the tears he will cause to flow, and the anguish and despair he will create. Not unlike the spider which spreads his fallacious snare, and watches with anxious solicitude the moment the unconscious fly approaches it, when he rushes on his innocent prey, which struggles to gain its liberty and life, but, alas! in vain; and if it should extricate itself, it is so debilitated and wounded, that it never recovers strength, but lingers life in perfect misery. Thus these pests of society lay wait to entangle and destroy innocent females, who have 10 friends to defend them, and no relatives to redress their wrongs. If a solitary gleam of pity flushes across his iron mind, it is instantly effaced by the more potent call of lawless passion. If the principles of religion and moral rectitude recur to his memory, they are rejected as the offspring of fanaticism, that do not belong to the character of a gentleman. He thinks he may enjoy the license which custom proffers and human laws do not prohibit. As for God and his laws, such characters pay very little regard to them. Since then temptations and snares stand thick through all the ground, the syren's voice is heard on every side, to lead the rising generation to ruin, should not parents, therefore, be perseveringly solicitous to fortify the minds of their children against the evit day, when they may be exposed to all the force of temptation from Satan and wicked men, when they are laid in their graves, and can no longer protect and defend them? Surely they should. But, alas! how contrary do many parents act to this line of conduct! They not only suffer their female progeny to go unreproved into the very jaws of destruction, but even facilitate their ruin themselves. Little do they think, that they themselves will have to answer to God for the evils resulting to the rising generation from their negligence; for, surely, children that are formally devoted, by their infatuated parents, to be the slayes of fashion and idleness, will, of course, become, not the ornaments, but the pests of socicty. A folio volume would not contain what might be said, in displaying modern fashions, and their deleterious tendencies. And the misfortune is, that many parents encourage their children to become the votaries of fashion, long before they arrive at years of maturity. You may see little miss Amelia mimicking the fashions, with all the affected airs of a coquette, before she hath seen her twelfth year; and little master Tommy, at the same age, with his pantaloons up to his chin, his waistcoat about six inches long, his half boots with tassels, a watch in his fob, a club under his arm, and a segar in his mouth, strutting along with his arms a-kimbo, with all the self-consequence of a nabob. Can it be possible, that such parents ever recol· lect for what purpose man was created. I repeat the sentiment, and it cannot be too often repeated, while parents are so thoughtless, for what end God intrusted them with the care of children, I should have said immortal spirits, capable of high beatitude. Was it that they should consider them as animal machines, and forsooth learn them to dance and sing, and spend their precious time in pursuit of vanity and sensual gratification, and to prostitute their talents to the most unworthy purposes; in short, their lives in the service, not of their friend, but of their enemy not of their Heavenly Father, but of Satan. I smile to myself when I take a retrospective view of the routine, of the formalities and ceremonies, through which the children of those called the higher class pass, while attaining, and prior to their being metamorphosed to what are called ladies and gentlemen; but that smile is changed to a frown of indignation, when I recollect the dreadful consequences resulting to the unconscious innocents, who are prematurely contaminated with pride and vanity; and who become, as it were mechanically, or by instinct, the devoted victims of concupiscence, and sensuality, or, to what leads directly to these evils, namely, fashion. When I recollect these gigantic evils, for my mind unbidden still recurs to the same topic, disgusted with the baneful retrospect, and alarmed for the consequences, I can only lament the infatuation and degradation of my unhappy fellowtravellers to the tomb, who are one day arrayed in all the pomp and pageantry of fashion, and the next day wrapped in their winding-sheets; one day, blooming with health and beauty, and bursting with pride; and the next inanimate clay; one day, with all the affectation of pedants, the coquetry of jilts, the formality of devotees, and the agility of play-actors, skipping through the ballroom; the next, stretched out on the coolingboard. Like the beauteous lily, waving on the) dewy lawn, displaying its snow white face, danc-) ing in the winds, and receiving the exhilarating) sun-beams in full effusions: when lo! in a momeet, the atmosphere is clouded, the sun shrouds his golden face, the storms arise, the rain descends in deluges, overloads the gay plant, till it droops and kisses the ground; when the rude winds invade and tear up by the roots. It lies extended on the lawn, its beauty forever fled, and} mingles with the dust. * Thus, one month, the proud votary of fashion, thinks the ground scarcely good enough for her to walk upon; next month, she is deposited six feet below that ground, mouldering to dust, and the food of worms. But when we extend our ideas to the indelicacy, indecency, and fatality of female fashion, and view its votaries, one day, with all the enticing wiles of Joseph's beauteous, though incontinent mistress, and with all the charms of a Helen, exhibited to the greatest advantage, in order that she might attract the eyes and provoke the lust of the degenerate, and thus cause them to sin against the Eternal; I say, how dreadful is the thought, yet how true, that, one day, the votary of fashion is thus leading the unguarded into the devious paths of folly; and the next, she is arraigned at the bar of God to answer for the concomitant evils resulting from such imprudent and wicked conduct, of which nature it undoubtedly is. Indeed I am bold to say, that some fashionable females would be less fascinating, were they to go altogether naked: for instance, a person may display in part an object, which will be truly captivating by exhibiting the most attracting part to view; and screening the rest as still more delightful; whereby the beholder is stimulated, with tenfold solicitude, to recognize that which is screened, his fancy depicting it in imaginary colors, as possessed with intrinsic excellencies, which, were he to behold in its native colors, he would be quickly undeceived. Indeed, some ladies carry fashions to such an extreme, as *Genesis, 39 Chap. to be but one degree above nakedness. I have myself seen-But here let me stop. Decency* forbids me to depict what some expose, who perhaps would be offended to be called inmodest. "Their robes so fashion'd, that degenerate mer This makes seduction seem both fine and gay, And yet in them is every art and charm, *I hope the reader will excuse the indelicacy of some expressions used in this work. I am willing to apologize for the same; but I think, in point of justice, the votaries of fashion should first make an apology to the public for giving the cause, they being, unquestionably, under more cogent obligations so to do, than I am; for I scarcely exhibit in miniature, what they freely display in magnitude. Indeed, it gives me pain to be so pointed in my animadversions, but it is indispensably necessary: for, without this, my writing on the subject will be in vain. When licentious fashions or practices become habitual, there is no possible means of exhibiting their deformity, but by painting them in the most prominent manner, and lively colors. |