Women, Past and Present

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1864. Excerpt: ... Chap. XIII. INFLUENCE OF METHODISM. 359 occasional popular lectures. In London a beginning has been already made by ladies' colleges, normal training institutions for females, societies for bettering the condition of needlewomen, and providing them with comfortable and economical lodging-houses. It was the opinion of Southey that the rise of Methodism had been beneficial to the ignorant but not to the educated classes. It had narrowed their minds and feelings, burthened them with forms, restricted them from recreations preservative of health, discouraged accomplishments that adorn life, and substituted the precarious impulses of enthusiasm for the more steady and cheering light of Church-of-Englandism. Something of this gloom and inertness may continue to detract from the rational enjoyments of Middle-Class life. Want of suitable employments for females has been alleged to be a principal cause of sadness in this direction; but would not the torch of Hymen most aptly lighten up and dissipate such despondency? Indeed, some zealous defenders of the feminine order complain loudly that marriage has degenerated and become only a trade. But who is to blame? From the more impassioned nature of men, they more frequently err in matchmaking than females. Ladies, if independent, not uncommonly prefer single blessedness to matrimony. Some, however, may demur to marital prerogatives, like the wealthy dame mentioned in Lady Morgan's Diary, who rejected all proposals on the ground that no husband should have legal rights over her. What other sort of rights this lady preferred does not appear. Life of Wesley, ii. p. 539. For anything we dislike some excuse may be always found. One reason assigned for the number of unmarried females is that they have too many accomplishme...