CHAPTER IV.


THE DIGNITY OF WOMAN.

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 same words to woman, for her
happiness and virtues depend in great measure on the elevated idea
that she has of herself, and on the care with which she maintains
this idea, both in her own mind and in that of others. Woe to the
woman who, through false modesty, or something still worse, has lost
self-respect, for she has deprived herself of her most powerful
safeguard against instability of character and seductions of the world.

Woman has received from God the sublime mission of fostering in
society the spirit of sacrifice and devotedness. Faithful, nay,
sometimes perhaps over-zealous, in the discharge of these duties, she
feels an imperative need of sacrificing herself to another who should
constitute the complement of her life. As long as she has not made
this surrender of herself to another she is a burden to herself, for
she seems to find her liberty and happiness in this voluntary
servitude of the heart, in this constant abnegation, in this
perpetual sacrifice of her whole being.

This disposition of woman's heart, which has been given her for the
good of society and for her own happiness, can be easily used to the
detriment of both; such is necessarily the case the moment she sinks
in her own estimation, so as to account herself a being of little