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Home: Your First Duty
"Nettie was a jolly girl until she turned pious," exclaimed a bright, good-humoured brother of eighteen. "Since she became religious there is no getting her to do anything. If a fellow brings home a new song she is too busy knitting stockings or making flannel petticoats for all the old women in her district, to find time to accompany him on the piano. If a fellow asks her to go for a row, or take a turn in the public gardens, she really cannot spare the time.
"Let them first learn to show piety at home," was the Apostle Paul's injunction in regard to young widows; and surely he would reiterate the thought, were he amongst us today, in reference to the sisters and the daughters of the home.
Nettie had mistaken her mission, when she thought less of those at home than of the poor. Surely her brother's need was greater and had larger claim upon her time and energies than all the wants of a destitute poor whom God had not placed within the precincts of her home! To go to her district with her Bible in her hand might seem to be more in accordance with the thoughts of true piety, than to be in her place at home without the Bible in her hand, ready to accompany her brother's songs, to mend his gloves, to share his leisure hours; but in the sight of Him who tries the thoughts of our hearts, and weighs the motives of our lives, which, think you, would win from Him the "Well done, thou good and faithful servant;" the work He gave, or the work she chose?
My dear young sisters, make up your mind to the fact that religion is intended to make you shine at home. It need not and will not prevent your frequent work for others in the spare hours you can justly call your own; but unless it makes you, as a daughter, more thoughtful and considerate, more eager to obey and hold the smallest wish of either parent in sacred trust; unless it gives you, as a sister, a keener sense of your responsibilities, and a more earnest desire and effort to win to a higher, purer life the brothers of the home; unless your Christian life means this to you, you have yet to learn that your highest service to God is to live the life He gives you and to do His will.
From Our Daughters: Their Lives Here and Hereafter
Posted by lilypress at October 3, 2005 7:38 PM
