Victorian Scrapbook ~ March 1864

Once again we have a lovely scene of children with their femininely dressed mothers in this Victorian Era periodical. Did you know that the editress of Godey's Lady's Book (Sarah Josepha Hale) is also the author of the famous nursery rhyme, "Mary Had a Little Lamb"?

Would you like to step back in time to the March of 1864?

NECESSITY OF FAITH IN PROVIDENCE. 

Certain moral necessities are on the mind and heart of man; and the recognition of an overruling Providence is one of them. An all-seeing and an all-disposing power confronts us everywhere and in everything; and not to believe in a Providence of which this power is the visible expression would be to confound all the circumstances and necessities of human life, as well as to falsify the whole testimony of our moral nature. The admission of a creation draws after it as a necessary sequence the acknowledgment of a Providence. To admit the one and deny the other is a palpable contradiction. In an hour of darkness and distress—conditions to which human experience is ever incident—man is forced to look to the supernatural and divine for light and comfort. 

(continued below)

Here is a condition of dependence which no human power can relieve; this dependence, therefore, implies, unless man's whole nature is a lie, something to depend only which must, of necessity, be divine and without limitation. Faith in a superintending, beneficent Providence is therefore a necessity to the human heart. 'Tis indeed a sublime comfort to the earth-troubled spirit to know that: 

"Unheard, no burdened heart's appeal 

Moans up to God's inclining ear; 

Unheeded by his tender eye, 

Falls to the earth no sufferer's tear."

~ Excerpt from Godey's Lady's Book, March 1864

"A true woman will be a true friend, and those are the best and truest friendships that have been born in adversity and nurtured by trial...

(continued below)

Passion, and more particularly ill-regulated passion, too frequently perishes from its very vehemence, till there is nothing left for it but to die. True love creates its own refreshment in the simple act of loving, and by its very constancy is a beautiful example of that Scripture which saith, "It is more blessed to give than to receive."

~ Excerpt from Godey's Lady's Book, March 1864

Stern daughter of the voice of God! 

Duty! if that name thou love, 

Who art a light to guide, a rod 

To check the erring and reprove; 

Give unto me, made lonely wise, 

The spirit of self-sacrifice!

~Wordsworth.

I hope you enjoyed these treasures from the past…

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January 1864

February 1864

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