Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1886-04-14

| Christ met Martha, that he appreciates al
your work from garret to cellar; and that
the God of Deborah and Hannah, ard
| Abigail, and grandmother Lois, and Eliz
abeth Fry, and Hannah Moore is the Goo
of the hOusekeeper. Jesus was neves
married that He might be the especial
| friend and confidant of whole world OF
| troubled womanhood. | blunder; Christ
| was married The Bible says that tht
Church is the Lambs wife, and that
makes me know that all Christian women
| have right to go to Christ and tell Him
of their annoyances and troubles, since by
His oath of conjugal fidelity He is sworn
to sympathise. George Herbert, the
on this subject:
1.-The servant by this classe
Makes druldgery psvirA 4
W no sweeps a rOofn, as fOf Tny laws,
Makes this and the action flne.,'
Again, there is the trial of severe econo-
my. Nine hundred and ninety-nine bonse-
holds out of the thousand are subjected to
it-some under more and some under less
stress Of circumstances. Especially if
man smoke very expensive cigars, and
take very costly dinners at the restau-
rants, he will be severe in demanding do
mestic economies. This is what kills tens
of thousands of Notwithstanding to
make five dollars do the work of seven.
How the bills come in ! The woman is the
banker of the household; she is the presi-
dent, the cashier, the teller, the discount
clerk, and there is panic every few
weeks This thirty years war against
high prices, this perpetual study of econo-
mics, this lifelong attempt to keep the
outgoes less than the income, exhausts
millions of honsekeepers. o my sister,
this is a part of the Divine discipline. If
it were best for you, all you would
have to do would be to open
the front windows and the ravens
would fly in with food; and after you had
baked fifty times from the barrel in the
pantry, the barrel, like the one of Zare-
path, would be FULL and the shoes of the
children would last as long as the shoes
of the Israelites in the wilderness forty
years. Besides that, this is going to make
heaven the more attractive in the con-
trast. They never hunger there, and
consequently there will be none of the
nuisances Of catering for appetites.
And in the land of the white robe they
never have to mend anything, and the air
in that hill country makes everybody WE'LL
There are no rents to pay; every man owns
will not be SO great change for you to
have a chariot in heaven if you have been
in the habit of riding in this world. 1t will
not be SO great change for you to sit down
on the banks of the river of life if in this
world you had a country seat; but if you
have walked with tired feet in this world,
what glorious change to mount celestial
equipage; and if your life on earth was do
mestic martyrdom, O! the joy of an eterni-
ty in which you shall have nothing to do
except what you choose to do. Martha has
had no drudgery for eighteen centuries! |
quarrel with the theologians who want to
distribute all the thrones of heaven among
the John Knoxes, and the Hugh Latimers,
and the Theban Legion. Some of the
brightest thrones of heaven will be kept for
Christian housekeepers. O! what change
from here to there from the time when
they put down the rolling pin to when they
take up the sceptre. If Chatsworth Park
and the Vanderbilt Mansiop. on Fifth ave
nue. were to be lifted into the Celestial city,
they would be considered uninhabtable
rookeries. and glorified Lazarus would be
ashamed to be going in and out of either of
them.
There are many housekeepers who could
get along with their tolls if it were not for
sickness and trouble. The fact is one half
of the women of the land are more or less
invalids. The mountain lass who has never
had an ache or pain, may consider house
hold toll inconsidera BILE, and toward even
ing she may skip away miles to the fields
and drive home the cattle, and she may
until 10 O'Clock at night fill the house with
laughing racket; but, o! to do the work Of
life with worn-out constitution, when
I,oo
weeks in the household, making the night as
sleepless as the day-that is not so easy
Perhaps this comes after the nerves have
been shattered by some bereavement that
has left desolation in every room of the
house and set the crib in the garret, because
the occupant has been hushed into sum-
ber which needs no mothers lullaby. Oh!
she could provide for the whole group a
great deal better than she could for a part
of the group nov the rest are gone TIL ugh
you may tell her God is taking care of those
who are gone, it is mother-like to brood
both fiocks; and one wing she puts over the
flock in the house, the other wing she puts
over the flock in the grave.
There is nothing but the old-fashioned
religion of Jesus Christ that will take a vo
man through the trials of home life. AT
first, there may be romance or novelty
that will do for a substitute. The marriage
hour has just passed, and the perplex ties
of the household are more than atoned bv
the joy of being together, and by the fact
that when it is late they do not have to dis
cuss the question as to whether it is time to
go! The mishaps of the household, instead
of being a matter of anxiety and reprehen-
sion, are a matter of merrment-the loaf of
bread turned into geological specimen; the
slushy customs; the jaundiced or measly
biscuits. 1t is a very bright sunlight that
falls on the cutlery and the mantel orna-
ments of new home.
But after awhile the romance is all gone.
and then there is something to be prepared
for the table that the book called Cookery
Taught in Twelve Lessons" will not teach.
The receipt for making it IS not handful
of this, a cup of that, and spoonful of
something else. It is not something sweet
ened with ordinary condiments, or favored
with ordinary fiavOrs or baked in ordinary
ovens. 1t is the loaf of domestic happiness,
and all the ingredients come down from
heaven, and the fruits are plucked from the
tree of life, and it is sweetened with the new
wine of the kingdom, and it is baked in the
oven of home trial. Solomon wrote out of
lis own experience. He had wretched
home. man cannot be happy with two
wives much less six hundred; and he says,
writing out of his own experience. 'Bet-
ter is dinner of herbs, where love is, than
stalled OK and hatred Herewith
How great are the responsibilities of
housekeepers! Sometimes an indigestible
article Of food, by its effects upon COM
mander or king, has defeated an army or
overthrown and entire. Housekeepers, by
the food they provide, by the couches they
spread, by the books they introduce, by the
influences they bring around their home,
are deciding the physical, intellectual,
moral, eternal destiny of the race. You say
your life is one Of sacrifice. | know it.
But my sisters, that is the only life worth
living. That was Florence Nightingale's
life; that was Payson's life; that was Christ's
life. We admire it in others; but how very
hard it is to cultivate ourselves. When, in
this city, young Doctor Hutchinson, having
spent d whole night in diphtheretic room
for the relief of q patient, became saturated
with the poison and died, we all felt as if we
would like to put garlands on his grave; ev-
erybOdy appreciates that, When in the