The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1886-03-25
business life and mechanical life ana agri-


cultural life is home pressure.
Again, charge you, never talk to others
about the frailties of your husband. Some
people have way, in banter, Of elabo-
rately describing to others the shortcom-
ings or unhappy eccentricities of hus-'
band or wife. All, the world viii find out
soon enough all the defects of your COM
panion. No need of your advertising them.
Better initiate those women who, having
made mistakes in alliance, always have a
veil to hide imperfections and alterations
of conduct to mention. We must admit
that there are rare cases where a wife can
not live longer with her husband, and his
cruelties and outrages are the precursor of
enforcement or separation. But until that
day comes keep the awful secret to your
self. Keep it from every being in the uni
verse, except the God to whom you do well
to tell your trouble. Trouble only few
years at most, and then you can go up on
the other side of the grave and say: SO,
Lord, I kept the marital secret. Thou
knowest how well kept it, and I thank
thee that the release has come at last.
Give me some place where can sit down
and rest awhile from the horrors OF an
embruted earthly alliance, before ! begin
the full raptures of Heaven" And orders
will be sent out to the usher angels, say
ing: "Take this Abigail right mp to the
softest seat in the best room of the palace,
and let twenty of the brightest angels wait
ON her for the next thousand years"
charge you, also, make yourself the in
telligent companion of your husband.
What with these floods of newspapers and
books, there is no excuse for the wife's ig-
norance either about the present or the
past. If you have no more than half
hour every day to yourself you may fill
your mind with entertaining and useful
knowledge. Let the merchants wife
read up on all mercantile questions, and
the mechanics wife on all that pertains
to his style of work, and the professional
mans wife on all the legal or medical or
theological or political discussions of the
day. 1t is very stupid for a man,
after having been amid active minds all
day, to find his wife without informa-
ton or opinions on anything. If the
wife knows nothing about what is going
on in the world, after the tea hour has
passed, and the husband has read his
newspaper, he win have an engagement,
and must go and see a man. In nine cases
out of ten, when a man does not stay at
home in the evening, unless positive duty
calls him away, it is because there is
nothing to stay for. He would rather
talk with his wife than any one else if she
could tax as well.
charge you, my sister, in every way to
make your home attractive. ! have not
enough of practical knowledge about
house adornment to know just what
makes the difference; but here is an
opulent house, containing all wealth
of bric-a-brac, and of musical in
strument, and of painting, and of
upholstery, and yet there is in it chill
like Nova Zembla. Another home, with
one-twentieth part of the outlay, and
small supply of art, and cheapest piano
purchasable, and yet, as you enter it,
there comes upon body, mind and soul,
glow of welcome and satisfied and happy
domesticity. The holy art of making the
most comfort and brightness out of the
means afforded every wife should study.
At the siege of Argos. Pyrrhus was
killed by the tile Of q roof thrown by q
woman, and Abimelech was slain by q
stone that a woman threw from the tower
Of Thebez, and Earl Montfort was de-
stroyed by rock discharged at him by q
woman from the walls of Toulouse. But
without any weapon save that of her own
cold, cherries household arrange ment,
any wife may slay all the attractions of q
home circle. A wife and mother in pros
pered circumstances and greatly admired
was giving her chief time to social life.
The husband spent his evenings away The
son, fifteen years of age, got the same habit,
and there was prospect that the other chill
dren as they got old enough would take the
same turn. One day the wife aroused
to the consideration that she. had better
save her husband and her boy. interest
ing and stirring games were introduced
into the house. The mother studied up in !.
| teresting things to tell her children. One
morning the son said: Father, you ought
to have been home last night. We had a
grand time. Such jolly games and such
interesting stories. This went on from
night to night, and after awhile the hus-
band staid in to see what was going on,
! and he finally got attracted and added
| something Of his own to the evening en-
tertainments; and the result was that the
wife and mother saved her husband and
saved her boy and saved herself. Was
| not that an enterprise worth the attention
Of the greatest woman that ever lived since
Abigail at the foot of the rock arrested
the four hundred armed W arriors?
Do not, my sister, be dizzied and dis
turbed by the talk of those who think the
home circle too insignificant for a wom-
ans career, and who want to get you out on
platforms and in conspicuous enterprises.
There are women who have special out
side mission, and do not dare to interpret
me as deriSive Of their important mis- :
sion. But my opinion is that the
woman who can reinforce her hus-
band in the work of life and rear her chill
dren for positions of usefulness, is doing
more Tor God and the race and her own
happiness than If she spoke on every great
platform and headed a hundred great en-
terprises. Ny mother never made a mis-
sionary speech in her life, and at mis-
sionary meeting doubt whether she could
have got enough courage to voice aye or
no, but she raised her son John, who has
been preaching the gospel and translating
| religious litorature in Annoy China for