Psalm 144:11-15 Rid me, and deliver me from the hand of strange children, whose mouth speaks vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of falsehood:… : — The charming young woman is one of the most useful and beautiful objects of earth; God's improvement on man; His masterpiece; a being inspiring those who meet her with all good desires, and worthy of all reverential admiration when one beholds her adorned with the perfections that her Creator has ordained for her glory; Jehovah's choicest gift to Adam was such a maiden. 1. The charming young woman whom we all know was a girl as long as she could be, and when she passed to the stature of womanhood she put on strength, but not a bit of coarseness or mannishness. She became a womanly woman. Now she is proud of her sex and makes others so. She is sincere and frank. There is no mask on her face and no humbug in her make-up. She loves truth for its own sweet sake. She is full of conscious moral power, and never feels the need of having recourse to that common weapon of weaker feminines — falsehood. Out of such materials the brave Deborah, the virtuous Vashti, the consecrated Esther, and the patient Virgin Mary were composed. 2. The charming young woman is full of fine feelings. She loves and cultivates the beautiful, and her soul naturally clings to the elegant in nature, as it does also to the spiritual splendours of God. Her fine feelings recoil from unreined gush and lawless sentiment, but easily run into the ways of generous charity. She has tears for suffering and kindly ministries for those who need. Yet in peril or necessity there are principles to guard, or to nerve to heroic effort. The days she tenderly played mother to her dolls were true forerunners of the devoted services of her maturer years. She may be beautiful of features, but is generally not so. "Beauty is vain." Flattery or worshipping self before a mirrored shrine usually spoils our handsome girls. 3. The charming young woman does not rest her power of fascination upon her shapeliness nor her array of second-hand clothes borrowed from the ostrich and silk-worm. Her charm-power is from within. Her ideal is industrious. She abhors a sublimation of herself into a mere fitness to occupy a glass case, too fragile to move, too mightily fine for any vigorous use. She is a princely one, after the style of Rebecca the water. drawer; Rachel the shepherdess, and Tamar the maiden baker. These were all worthy daughters of kings. Our model is independent in the superior sense, not in the "I don't care far any one" import of the term. She cares for everybody. She cares too much on the one hand to be a dead weight on any one, and on the other band she cares too much for herself to be the slave of a capricious "They say." 4. Our charmer is pure in heart; the "racy" jest or double-meaning pun is quickly scouted out of her presence, even when she is among the intimates of her own sex. Her purity is her panoply; a glance of her sincere eye would be to the insinuating rake like a section of the day of judgment. She has principles, and lots of them. She knows why she has them, and keeps them for constant use and not for parlour dress-parade or donation to other people. She is pious. Religion and women were made for each other, and each needs the other. A young woman with no bent easily to accept the Saviour gives evidence of a radical defect in her nature. (A. S. Walsh, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Rid me, and deliver me from the hand of strange children, whose mouth speaketh vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of falsehood: |
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