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Indulged Daughter
489
with you more or less, and their feelings were stirred by your ex-
aggerated reports. They injured you. You had not been as strictly
disciplined as you should have been. Yet you were offended because
you could not have your own way, but were compelled to yield to
the decided, thorough manner of Brother H’s instructions. While
in school, you were sometimes troublesome, impudent, and defiant,
and greatly lacked modesty and decorum. You were bold, selfish,
and self-exalted, and needed firm discipline at home as well as at
school.
Your mind is impure. You were relieved from care and labor
altogether too long. Household duties would have been one of the
richest blessings that you could have had. Weariness would not
have injured you one tenth as much as have your lascivious thoughts
and conduct. You have received incorrect ideas in regard to girls’
and boys’ associating together, and it has been very congenial to
your mind to be in the company of the boys. You are not pure in
heart and mind. You have been injured by reading love stories and
romances, and your mind has been fascinated by impure thoughts.
Your imagination has become corrupt, until you seem to have no
power to control your thoughts. Satan leads you captive as he pleases.
You are not happy. You do not love God or His people. You have a
bitter spirit toward those who see your true character. You seem to
blame them for the view they take of your case, but you are the one
to blame. Your conduct has been such as to call forth cautions and
warnings. You have only yourself to censure in this.
You are a dangerous associate, and have done much harm by
your influence in-----. You have led instead of being led. You have
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dishonored God and are accountable to Him for the work of evil
which you have wrought by your influence. Your conduct has not
been chaste, modest, or becoming. You have not had the fear of
God before your eyes. You have so often dissembled in order to
accomplish your plans that you bear a violated conscience. My dear
girl, unless you stop just where you are, ruin is surely before you.
Cease your daydreaming, your castle-building. Stop your thoughts
from running in the channel of folly and corruption. You cannot
safely associate with the boys. A tide of temptation is roused and
surges in your breast, having a tendency to uproot principle, female