Page:About people (IA aboutpeople00well).pdf/165

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PERSONAL INFLUENCE.
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of women have homes and hearts, and when hundreds of women are working to protect just such girls; but these hundreds are not enough. Every true woman should enlist in personal search for the friendless. When each holds another up then there will be no occasion for falling. Indolence presents a feature of character almost impossible to conquer. Persuasion seems useless; there is no power to compel industry; downright laziness prefers ease by any means, and accepts sin with its pleasures and pains as it has dawdled through all other occasions of life. Personal influence, extended where the rigor of the law cannot reach, is the only method of attack upon this nearly impassable front.

Next to these two sources of evil can be ranked personal vanity, love of amusements, theatres, dancing, and a fondness for dress. All of them act as incentives, though to a regard for dress has been ascribed more force than it deserves; it is really a minor

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