Ladies, Behave Yourselves

Okay, I admit it. Our family actually has a Bathroom Reader. There. Now you know what my life is really like. *exhale*

And I was reading it. BUT not in the bathroom! ~The living room, actually~ And in it I found some interesting quotes on etiquette... thought they were quite insightful. :)

"It's a great idea to file your fingernails in the street car, bus, or train. It's certainly making the most of your time. The noise of the filing drowns the unpleasant noise of the wheels. But it is the act of of an ill-bred person. Who but an ordinary person would allow her epithelium to fly all over? I think that one might as well scatter ashes after a cremation, around the neighborhood."
-Manners for Millions (1932)

"The perfect hostess will see to it that the works of male and female authors be properly separated on her bookshelves. There proximity, unless they happen to be married, should not be tolerated."
- Lady Gough's Etiquette (1863)

"No matter what the fashion may be, the gloves of a well-dressed woman are never so tight that her hands have the appearance of sausages."
-The New Etiquette (1940)

"A lady-punster is a most unpleasing phenomenon, and we would advise no young woman, however skilled she may be, to cultivate this kind of verbal talent."
- Collier's Cyclopedia of Commercial and Social Information (1882)

"Girls, never, never turn at a whistle, to see if you are wanted. A whistle is usually to call a dog."
- Good Manners (1934)

"A beautiful eyelash is an important adjunct to the eye. The lashes may be lengthened by trimming them occasionally in childhood Care should be taken that this trimming is done neatly and evenly, and especially that the points of he scissors do not penetrate the eye."
- Our Department (1881)

"Still less say of anything which you enjoy at the table 'I love melons,' 'I love peaches,' 'I adore grapes' - these are school-girl utterances. We love our friends. Love is an emotion, but not one of the palate. We like, we appreciate grapes, but we do not love them."
- The American Code of Manners (1880)

"Sending out a letter with a crooked, mangled or upside down stamp is akin to letting your lingerie straps show."
- Good Housekeeping's Book of Today's Etiquette (1965)

"Fingernails are another source of feminine excess. The woman who goes about her daily avocations with blood-red finger-nails is merely harking back to the days of savagery, when hanks smeared with blood were a sign of successful fighting."
- Things That Are Not Done (1937)

"Immoderate laughter is exceedingly unbecoming a lady; she may affect the dimple or the smile, but should carefully avoid any approximation to a horse-laugh."
- The Perfect Gentleman (1860)

"Large hats make little women look like mushrooms."
- Everyday Etiquette (1907)

Extreme Devotion

I just read this on My Savior's Perfect Will and thought it was an awesome story! Please take the time to read it. You'll enjoy it, I'm sure!

RUSSIA: HYPOCRITES

They were singing choruses when the two soldiers entered with rifles. The service came to a halt as the Russian soldiers stared at the believers with wild eyes.
"What are you doing here?" They shouted. "Worshiping your imaginary God?" The church members cowered in their pews, wondering if there were more soldiers outside.
"All of those who are faithful to God, move to the right side of the church," said one of the soldiers, his face a mask of hatred. "You will be shot for your faith. You who wish to go home and keep your life, stand on the left side. You must decide to live or die. Those who are faithful to this 'God' will die. Those who deny Him can live freely."
Ten minutes earlier everyone had sung praises equally. Now it was a question of life or death. Some stood to the left, looking sadly or waving apologetically to those on the right. Some stood on the right, their eyes closed in last-minute prayers.
"You on the left are free to go," one of the soldiers said moments later. Those people filed out, taking one last look at those who would soon be dead.
When those on the right remained, the soldiers put down their weapons. "We, too, are Christians," they said, "but we wish to worship without hypocrites."

Story taken from Extreme Devotion, Voice of the Martyrs

Ambassador of... What?

I think it's really easy for young ladies to get into the mindset that if so-and-so isn't as modest, pure or has "got-it-together" like they do (and really, do any of us have it together?), then they're instantly in some sort of position to critisize the girl within every inch of her life. This story gives us a little heads up on the topic, and reminds us what really matters.

Ambassador of… What?

By Sarah H. [a blogger at Destiny of One]

“Have you met Tracy?” Rachel asked one of the five girls standing in a little huddle in the fellowship hall.

“Tracy who?” Karen asked

“Tracy Smith,” Rachel replied.

“I think I have,” Hannah responded. “Isn’t she the one that is always wearing the really low cut dresses?”

“That’s the one,” Rachel responded.

“Oh, so she was the girl sitting in front of me who couldn’t keep her hands off her boyfriend. Didn’t that girl hear the pastor’s sermon on purity last week?” Karen asked, shaking her head.

“Well, she does go to public school,” Emily said with a knowing tone. Emily looked over at Bethany, who remained silent with her arms crossed.

“Public school is ruining that girl,” Karen agreed. “Did you see her this morning? She had on so much make-up I don’t think you could see her face.” This brought giggling from all the girls; all that is, except Bethany, who sat just listening.

“I sat behind her two weeks ago, and she kept talking through the whole service. She has a horrible mouth. Well, she didn’t say that many bad words, but she was disrespectful to her mom and she was criticizing every one,” Hannah said.

“Oh, I know it,” Rachel said with a nod. “My mom says that she is a manipulator and can get her mom to do anything.”

“Maybe her mom needs to learn who is in control,” Emily interjected. “Why, if Tracy were my child she would be leaning a few of life’s hard lessons right now.”

“That girl needs to be out of the public school system and in her home or she will end up getting her self in jail or something,” Karen remarked.

“I don’t think Tracy would …” Bethany started to say but was interrupted.

“And to think that she signed that pledge of abstinence a year ago,” Rachel said shaking her head.

“It is sad, but she is running her life,” Hannah said. All the other girls agreed, and there was a pause for a moment.
“
Excuse me, girls, but whose ambassadors are we?” Bethany asked, and four sets of eyes turned to her with questioning looks. “I mean, listen to yourselves! You are all going on and on about how bad Tracy is and what she needs to do, but not one of you is even close to fixing the problem.”

Hannah, Rachel, Emily and Karen looked blankly at Bethany. Bethany sighed.

“It would seem from this conversation that Tracy’s crime is that her parents have not chosen to home school her and that her greatest issue in life is that she has chosen to date. But is that her real issue? The four of you are so busy looking at her make up, low cut dresses, and her boy friend that not one of you sees the real problem.

“Rachel, whose ambassador are you? Or for what? Homeschooling? What about you, Hannah? Are you now the official advocate for modesty? How about you, Emily? Are you now part of the purity police force? And you, Karen, when did you begin to listen to what was going on behind you instead of the sermon?

“Really, you girls you ought to be ashamed. Whose ambassador are we supposed to be? Homeschooling’s? Courtship’s? “Respect’s? Well, I don’t know about you, but I am not an ambassador for homeschooling, courtship, honoring your parents, or even the pastor. I am not even the advocate of abstinence, prayer in schools, modesty, or any of the other things that you have mentioned. I am an ambassador for my lord Jesus Christ, and nothing else, I hope.

“You guys, Tracy has issues, I know. But you are talking about masking symptoms of a disease, not finding a way to cure it. Tracy’s problem is not that she is going to public school, or that she is dating, nor even that she is wearing revealing clothes. Tracy’s problem, Tracy’s disease is that she doesn’t have God.

“Which one of you has tried to be her friend? Which one of you has tried to love her and show her the way to God? Until you lead her to the point were she is broken at the feet of the cross, nothing will change Tracy. It isn’t that homeschooling isn’t a good thing. It’s not even that I wouldn’t like to see her stop dating and start having godly relationships. Rather, it’s that until you give her God it won’t make any difference.

“We have been sent to this earth to bring salt and light to a world that desperately needs it. We have been called to live radically different lives to be a witness to a country that is going downhill. But if we start preaching step sixteen before we have even said anything about step one, they are going to be confused and not listen to us any more.

“Have we forgotten that we are the privileged few? Not many kids are raised in radical churches and radical homes. We have been given much but we must remember that to whom much is given, much is expected. God did bless us with believing, homeschooling parents, not so that we would walk around with a holier-then-thou attitude. He gave it to us so that we could be his lights in a dark room.

“Tracy does not need to hear a sermon from you on how to dress; she needs to know that there is a white robe waiting for her in heaven if she will believe in Jesus. She doesn’t need us to tell her about how she is being brainwashed in school; she needs us to tell her that there is a God willing to wash her sins away and make them white as snow. She doesn’t need to be told that her love life is wrong; she needs to be told that there is a God that loves her and will fill the emptiness that is obviously in her heart.

“We will have many Tracys in our lives, girls, and they need us to be ambassadors from God to them. In order for us to do that, though, we have to deicide whose ambassador we are. I am my Lord and Savior’s, for even though I have never been ‘as bad as most,’ I killed Jesus with my sins, and he spilled his blood for me as much as he did for the murderer and the adulteress. It will be hard, I know. I don’t like Tracy and girls like her, but Christ spilled his blood for them, and he wants her to know that. Can I despise one to whom God extends his love?

“Let us decide today, girls, for whom or for what we are ambassadors.”