We are opposed to the usurpation of "patented self-rockers." When I hear a boy calling his grandfather "old daddy," and see the youngster whacking his mother across the face because she will not let him have ice-cream and lemonade in the same stomach, and at some refusal holding his breath till he gets black in the face, so that to save the child from fits the mother is compelled to give him another dumpling, and he afterward goes out into the world stubborn, willful, selfish and intractable,--I say that boy was brought up in a "patented self-rocker." The old-time mother would have put him down in the old-fashioned cradle, and sung to him, "Hush, my dear, lie still and slumber, Holy angels guard thy bed;" and if that did not take the spunk put of him would have laid him in an inverted position across her lap, with his face downward, and with a rousing spank made him more susceptible to the music.
When a mother, who ought to be most interested in training her children for usefulness and heaven, gives her chief time to fixing up her back hair, and is worried to death because the curls she bought are not of the same shade as the sparsely-settled locks of her own raising; and culturing the dromedarian hump of dry-goods on her back till, as she comes into church, a good old elder bursts into laughter behind his pocket-handkerchief, making the merriment sound as much like a sneeze as possible; her waking moments employed with discussions about polonaise, and vert-de-gris velvets, and ecru percale, and fringed guipure, and poufs, and sashes, and rose-de-chene silks, and scalloped flounces; her happiness in being admired at balls and parties and receptions,--you may know that she has thrown off the care of her children, that they are looking after themselves, that they are being brought up by machinery instead of loving hands--in a word, that there is in her home a "patented self-rocker!" So far as possible, let all women dress beautifully: so God dresses the meadows and the mountains.

Let them wear pearls and diamonds if they can afford it: God has hung round the neck of his world strings of diamonds, and braided the black locks of the storm with bright ribbons of rainbow.
Especially before and right after breakfast, ere they expect to be seen of the world, let them look neat and attractive for the family's sake.

One of the most hideous sights is a slovenly woman at the breakfast table.

Let woman adorn herself.

Let her speak on platforms so far as she may have time and ability to do so.