Chapter XVII: Part I: Motherly Talks with Young Housekeepers (14)

In making cake, dry and sift the flour, roll the sugar, if at all lumpy (granulated sugar will not lump), and put it in separate bowls or pans. Wash the butter, for cake or pastry, and put it into ice-water; weigh or measure the sugar and milk needed. Raisins should be stoned, the citron cut in thin slices, and currants washed and picked over, covered closely, and put away in a cool place the night before they are needed.

These materials all collected, butter the pans. If for cake, line them with clean white paper, well buttered. Use butter, instead of lard or drippings, as they may give an unpleasant taste to the under crust. Cake baked in butter-lined pans does not burn so readily on the bottom. If the cake does not require long baking, unbuttered paper will answer, as it will peel off readily when the cake is cool. Have some clean paper at hand to cover the top of the cake, if it begins to scorch.

The white paper used to print our newspapers on is as good for buttering and lining cake pans as the more expensive letter-paper, and is also very nice to cover shelves with, or lay in the bottoms of drawers. Two or three dozen sheets will last a good while, be of little expense, and very convenient for many purposes.

Eggs that are to be used in cake should be put into cold water in summer, while you are making your preparations, until ready to use them. Then break each one separately into a cup, to see if it is good; but by breaking all into the dish you beat them in, you risk ruining the whole by one bad egg. If good, turn it into the dish, and proceed the same way with the others. Have your nutmegs grated, and all other spices ready.

These preliminaries attended to, (and it takes but a few minutes to have all in readiness when you have done it rightly and methodically,) begin to put the materials together. First beat the butter and sugar together, till white and creamy; then beat the eggs,--the yelks and whites separately always, as whites require longer beating than yelks. Strain the yelks after beating, and add to them well-beaten butter and sugar; then the spices; stir in the flour gradually, before using the sweet or sour milk needed. If you use soda and cream of tartar, the latter should be sifted with the flour, and the soda, dissolved in cool milk or water,--never in hot water,--should be added after the milk. If _prepared flour_ is used, no soda or cream of tartar can be put in at all. Beat the batter very light, flour the currants and raisins and stir in; then add the whites, beaten stiff, the last thing. After they are added, the batter must not be beaten hard,--only enough to have it thoroughly incorporated with the dough. In beating the whites, do not stop after you begin till quite stiff, else they will “go back,” and then they will not come up light again.

In raised cake, put in the fruit, rolled in flour, just before you put the cake into the oven. Spread it over the top lightly, and press it in but a little way, else it will all sink to the bottom and be worthless.

Only practice and watchfulness can teach you how to judge correctly when cake, bread, etc., are done. If ever so perfectly made, it will be heavy if taken from the oven before being thoroughly baked. When obliged to turn pans round in the oven, do not move them roughly, and never, if possible, take cake, bread, or biscuit out of the oven to turn. The air striking on them will make them heavy and solid.

Cake made with sour milk or buttermilk should be put into the oven the moment it is put together, unless, like cookies or hard gingerbread, it is to be molded or rolled. In that case it is quite as good to be kept overnight or for some hours before baking.

In making pastry use the best butter you can find. Poor butter is bad enough anywhere, but nowhere so detestable as in pastry. If made with lard it looks nicer, but is by no means so good, and certainly much more hurtful than when shortened with two thirds more butter than lard. Use the hands as little as possible in making pastry; either rub in the shortening quickly, or chop it into the flour, so as not to heat it by your hands, particularly in warm weather. Wet always with cold water, and in summer with ice-cold water. Don’t touch it with your hands after you are ready to put in the water, but stir together with a knife quickly and lightly, turning it at once upon the board and roll out. Molding will make it tough. Bake in a moderately hot oven to a delicate brown. If scorched or hard baked, it will be bitter and disagreeable. If your oven does not bake so well at the bottom as at the top, the bottom crust will be very heavy and unhealthy.

Before rolling out, let your pastry stand on the ice, or in a cold place for an hour, as it makes it much more flaky.

In making puddings, some advise beating both whites and yelks together and then straining them. We prefer to beat separately, straining the yelks. The milk for most pies should be boiled, in which case the eggs must be added the last thing, and after the milk has become cool.

In batter puddings, only a little milk should be added to the flour at a time, and all the lumps beaten out smoothly before adding more, if you would have a light batter. When berries of any kind are put into batter pudding, they should be rolled in flour and added to the batter the last thing, or they will not mix well, and will settle to the bottom and be heavy. One third more flour is requisite for a batter pudding with fruit than when plain, except with cherries. They need only a little more.

If you have no tin pudding-boiler, a bowl, with a thick cloth tied tightly over, answers very well, or a thick tow or “butcher’s linen” square cloth. If a cloth is used, wring it out of cold water, and then sprinkle or spread flour over. Tie the cloth or bag very tight, but allow room to swell; plunge at once into a pot of boiling water, which must be kept constantly boiling until the pudding is done, or it will be poor and watery. Replenish the water as it wastes, by pouring boiling water from the teakettle into the pot. If there is fruit in the pudding, it should be turned over four or five times the first half-hour; if plain batter, turn it over when it has boiled ten minutes, or the flour will settle.

When done, a boiled pudding must be plunged into cold water a moment, to make it separate from the cloth easily. In cutting a boiled pudding, dip the knife in hot water for a minute, or lay it on the sides of the pudding till warm, and you can cut it without making it heavy.

Old housekeepers will think these hints quite needless, but letters daily received show them to be very much needed by the young, with whom in a short time we intend to have another quiet talk, from which the old folks may retire.

LXXXV.

AS THY DAY SO SHALL THY STRENGTH BE.

FROM those who seek counsel or consolation we receive many letters which we would gladly excuse ourselves from answering, by the plea that such topics come not under our supervision. But we cannot feel that words for “The Household” mean only information about the washing, cooking, and house-cleaning,--simply those things which belong to the temporal state and bodily comfort. We are compelled to attach a broader meaning to that word _household_. All the joys and sorrows, the hopes and fears, all the perplexities and anxieties which the _mother_, even more than the _mistress_, must accept when she assumes her position as the head of the home circle, cluster around the word and rise before her each hour of the day, if she conscientiously tries to do her duty. Not alone the health and bodily comfort of those who compose her kingdom, but their life-long usefulness and eternal happiness, are committed to her watchful care, and may be wrecked by one false step, one unguarded act, one ill-tempered word or unjust suspicion. Ah, to attempt to trace her responsibility through all the life that lies before her is overwhelming if she has not learned to feel that “as her day so shall her strength be”!

At times the mother’s life is full of brightness and joyousness; again, she sinks to the depths of despondency, or trembles with wild forebodings as her multiplying duties rise up before her, and she realizes how many conflicting characters and dispositions are depending on her for guidance. Nowhere does she feel this so keenly as in the care of her children. The consciousness of ignorance or inability to judge correctly, to act judiciously, so as to meet the wants of each child and be just to all, oppresses her. If all were alike, so that one code of laws, one well-digested line of action, would be as appropriate to the whole as to each individual case, the responsibility of rearing a family would be far less oppressive.

But there are no two the same. Each differs so widely in taste, disposition, and habits, that it necessitates as many modes of management as there are children in the family. One is loving and gentle. The parents need but express a wish, and, through the affections, the child finds its greatest pleasure in yielding its own wishes to secure theirs. Another is timid and sensitive to the last degree. A sharp “word at random spoken,” or ill-advised censure, may have “eternal power through life to wound,” because this very timidity induces a habit of reticence and concealment; the child preferring to endure the pain, rather than go through the ordeal of an explanation or justification; and the next one may be too proud to attempt it, both coming to the same results through widely different peculiarities.

One is bold and outspoken; another carelessly, recklessly happy, forgetting or neglecting all the rules of home in the overflowing joyousness of living; another is so under the influence of approbativeness, that to please and be approved, crowd independent, manly action out of sight; and the mother is too happy, if the power of this peculiarity does not too often draw the child beyond the bounds of strict honor and truthfulness.

And so through a large family you may look in vain for two so similar in character that, by taking that course which proves best for one, you may safely guide the other by it.

A mother of eight children, whose faith is wellnigh exhausted, who is cast down and wholly discouraged, thinks she would gladly die to escape the great responsibility of managing them; and this responsibility is growing greater and greater each year, as her boys and girls are leaving babyhood behind, and rapidly springing up toward manhood and womanhood. While they were little she enjoyed every moment, never feeling the care a burden. By and by one was taken from her, and for a while she refused to be comforted, till the Saviour spake and drew her to him.

But while she has evidently learned to _believe_ in Jesus, we think she has not yet learned to _trust_. After her conversion, the sense of her obligations to lead her children by the strait and narrow road has, we think, pressed very heavily upon her, and she is in danger, not only of hedging the path so closely as to render it distasteful, and to drive them from it, but is also depriving herself of all the joy she might possess by their true and loving companionship. She becomes alarmed at every act which teaches her that her children are but mortal, and sees in it evidence conclusive that they are rapidly going to destruction.

She comes to us for counsel and asks, “Is it because I am so sinful or so incompetent, that I do not succeed better in teaching my dear ones to forsake the evil and choose only the good? They are loving and kind; but if their hearts are not entirely astray from God, why do they so constantly forget all I try to teach them, and do those things which they know I think wrong? Did you ever feel discouraged and almost hopeless?”

Yes, O yes! And voluntarily threw away half the comfort every mother is entitled to when her children are young and ever with her. Anxious mothers never fully remember the days of their own youth, or realize that half of what they call sin is but the overflow of bright, young spirits, ready to effervesce and sparkle a little beyond the strict lines that the mother, in her more sedate years, has marked out as the proper bounds. Then mothers are so full of apprehension, so easily alarmed! “The evils of this life appear like rocky precipices,--rugged and barren when seen at a distance”; and they are sure their children will stumble and fall, and be destroyed by them. But wait and _trust_. When the great pressure of present care is somewhat lifted, and the children, one by one, go out from your immediate influence, and little grandchildren rise up about you,--for whom, though you dearly love them, you do not feel the full responsibility,--you will find on a nearer approach to these “rocky precipices” which so frightened you, “that there are many fruitful spots and refreshing springs mixed with the harshness and deformities of nature.” And remember, above all things, that it is folly to add all the possible cares and burdens of the _future_ to those which can come to you only day by day.

“Does each day upon the wing
Its allotted burden bring?
Load it not besides with sorrow
Which belongeth to the morrow.
Strength is promised, strength is given,
When the heart by God is riven;
But _foredate_ the day of woe,
And _alone_ thou bear’st the blow.

“One thing only claims thy care:
Seek thou first, by faith and prayer,
That all-glorious world above,--
Scene of righteousness and love;
And, whate’er thou need’st below,
He thou trustest will bestow.”

LXXXVI.

WHAT WE KNOW NOT NOW WE SHALL KNOW HEREAFTER.

STRANGE how natural it is for each individual to feel that there are no troubles, no sorrows, so severe as his own! How ready we are to feel that if the lessons our Father is teaching us were such as others around us were learning, we could surely bear them with fortitude!

The mother whom we spoke of in the last article, like many more who fully understand her difficulties,--for they are passing over the same rough road,--felt her trust and faith failing; yea, would “gladly lie down and die,” before half her threescore years and ten were accomplished, might she escape the responsibility of teaching her children, and using her best faculties (no one is asked to do any more) to train them up into noble men and women. The task appeared so hard, the way so long, and her faith so weak!

Now another mother claims, at least, our fullest sympathy,--a Rachel, “mourning for her children, and refusing to be comforted, because they are not.” One after another has been taken from her, and each one at “the most interesting age.”

When is this “most interesting” age? Can a mother draw the line? In early babyhood the precious gift nestles in her bosom, and lives entirely through her life,--so dependent on her for every care and comfort, that no one else can attempt to supply her place. Utterly helpless as the babe is, when the mother realizes how necessary to its life is her ceaseless watchfulness, can there be any period when it will be so interesting, so dear to her heart, as now, in this state of complete dependence?

But slowly it emerges from this helpless condition. Its first recognition, its first smiles and playfulness, are all bewitching. What can be more lovely? A few weeks pass, and it can sit alone; then it begins to creep; now, with what absorbing interest the first steps are watched, and commented upon with a pride and earnestness as if no child ever did all these things before. The mother’s heart is overflowing with love and tenderness; but God calls, and the lovely babe is forever hid from her sight.

How can she bear it? Whose sorrow was ever like unto hers? Why is it that God has sent this trial? What lesson can be taught by it, that will do half the good which that child’s presence would have accomplished? What is there in the care, the anxieties of watching over its maturing, which can be thought a hardship? How joyfully would this mother bear all this, if the life of her child might have been spared! She longs to lie down and die, not because of the responsibility which she knows would have increased with every added year,--she could have trusted her Father to give her strength sufficient for those duties. Her faith and trust fail, because God took her child from her, and in her anguish she cries, “Why am I thus bereaved?” In answer to these sad questions we can only say, “What ye know not now ye shall know hereafter.” In the first bitterness of this grief, there is nothing more to be said.

Another little one is given to soothe the mother. She watches it with trembling heart, through all the stages that her first-born had passed. Every unusual motion, every cry the child utters, fills her heart with alarm; some fresh cause for fear is found daily. But the little one thrives, has reached and passed all the points of deep interest which once before the mother watched with such pride. Now it begins to lisp her name, and shortly its cunning prattle is the theme of constant thought and conversation. When she rises in the morning,--at the table, by the fireside,--it is again and again repeated, a many-times-told tale, but always fresh, always new and beautiful. The mother has nothing else with which to entertain the friends who call, and truly believes that nothing could be told so new or so pleasing. In her absorbing delight over each new grace and beauty that is day by day developing, has she always remembered the Giver of her treasure? or, has her love become idolatry?

Again death enters, and just as the mother has begun to feel secure, her darling is snatched away from her. In this hour of anguish, what can comfort? Her heart rises up in rebellion, and she sees only cruelty in this second stroke. In her despair she accuses God wrongfully. She demands the reason why, “What evil have I done, that I am bereaved of my children?” And friends can only weep with her, saying, “What ye know not now ye shall know hereafter!”

We grieve with you, poor stricken mother. We know every step of the thorny road you are crossing; but do not allow these trials to make your heart grow cold and bitter. You say, “I see nothing but injustice in these dispensations which have left my home so desolate. Another child has been given us, but I am trying to steel my heart against it, for anything I love is taken from me.”

This is all wrong. You say that your husband is kind, and bearing his own sorrow for the loss of the little one silently, that he may comfort you. Should you not remember that he has been equally bereaved, and may need your sympathy? “Bear ye one another’s burdens,” and by so doing will you not find strength to rise above this affliction, so far that you can perform your duties with comfort, if not with cheerfulness? You say you have no pleasure in the little one still left you. May it not have been sent as a ministering spirit, to awaken in your heart a deeper love and gratitude for the mercies that still surround you, and bring you nearer to the Father, who often “wounds to heal, afflicts to save”? There are trials harder to bear than those which seem to have so nearly crushed you. When, instead of the prattle and frolic of babyhood, the child becomes old enough to be taught how to assist the mother in various ways,--begins to read and study, showing a mind rapidly maturing, giving promise of no common strength of character,--do you not see that it must become even more precious with each new development? Yet when incurable disease fastens upon it, and the parents see their bright and joyous child slowly but surely fading from their home, is not this a heavier calamity than when our little ones are taken from their cradles after only a few days of suffering?

We have seen a mother for months hold back her tears, and minister to the wants of the sufferer; and, hardest of all, sit by the bedside and listen to the child’s anxious questionings,--soothing its fears, when knowing that it is just entering the dark valley; singing of the peace and joys that lie beyond; step by step, as death came nearer, leading this child of her love down even to the banks of the “river that flows close by the throne of God,” that when its timid feet touch the waters she may herself almost lay the child into the Saviour’s arms, who is waiting to receive and bless it. In this, cannot you imagine that there is a depth of anguish which you have not yet fathomed? As our children grow toward manhood and womanhood with promise of rich maturity, does not our love grow with their growth, and strengthen with their strength? When their education is just completed, and they are almost ready to begin life’s work, if taken from us, is not the loss greater, the desolation more appalling, than that which you have known?

But your sorrow, though yet unsanctified, must be, to us, held sacred from severe judgment. Nature will rule for a time, and may compel utterance for which you can hardly be held responsible. We only fear that your grief may become morbid and your heart refuse to see the silver lining which may be discerned in every cloud. Why these afflictions have been sent we cannot tell. Our Father sees when our hearts have turned from their allegiance, and knows best what sharp lessons will be necessary to bring us back to him. He may see that your love has blinded you to the solemn duties that rest upon you, and to save the children from the effects of injudicious indulgence, may have taken them to himself, and by their loss design to draw you nearer.

Some lines, sent us by Mrs. Crann, the author of “Little Foxes,” will show you more clearly what we would convey than any words of ours:--

“We sat within a lighted room,
My baby boy and I;
But empty were my loving arms,
Where he was wont to lie
And look up fondly in my face,
For pretty toys were near;
And, though I called him lovingly,
The darling would not hear.

“I yearned to clasp him to my heart,
But wooed him all in vain;
To leave his play and come to me
Would give him too much pain.
I took the candle in my hand,
And, with a breath of air,
Extinguished its soft, cheerful light,
And made all darkness there.

“And soon I heard a sweet-toned voice,
To which I love to hark,
Cry, ‘Mother, take me in your arms!
I’m frightened in the dark!’
And then I caught the sweet boy up,
And felt him clasp me tight,
And knew that I was needed then,
Because there was no light.

“And as my darling grew in years,
The brightness of my joy
Made me adore our Father less
Than I adored my boy.
He called me in a tender tone,--
His voice is always mild,--
But I refused to go to Him,
And played on with my child.

“And then He blew my candle out
By stopping Harry’s breath;
And in the anguish of that grief,
The darkness of that death,
I cried out in a trembling voice,
And with an aching brow,
‘I’m coming to thee, O my God!
For my heart needs thee now.’”

LXXXVII.

UNTIL DEATH DO US PART.

“A WIFE” writes that she has three children; has been married eight years, and thinks it would be pleasant to be relieved from all home cares, and travel for a few months. Her mother would take her children home, so that she could feel perfectly at ease about them, but her husband objects. He cannot possibly go with her, and though it would be much pleasanter to have him accompany her, yet she could go with friends, who would give her every attention. Her husband is abundantly able to afford her this pleasure, but objects to her leaving him,--“having his home broken up, and his children separated from him” (sensible man!). “He endeavors to persuade her to be contented at home until by and by he can take wife and children on this pleasure trip.”

Now she declares that she has no faith in these _by and byes_, with which husbands seek to keep their wives from enjoying the present, by promises for the future. She thinks him unreasonably selfish, and feels that she would be justified in cutting loose from such bondage occasionally, and taking her pleasure, as she constantly sees so many other ladies doing.

We are pained with the whole tone of this letter, of which we give but a few lines. Notwithstanding her complaints and fault-finding, the writer cannot hide the fact that, from her own showing, she has a pleasant home, an indulgent husband, and wealth sufficient to obviate any necessity for labor or care, more than is required to superintend her domestic affairs, and look after her children, as every mother and housekeeper pledges herself to do when she enters the marriage state. It is natural that her husband should object to her leaving him for months, deprive him of his children, and disorganize his home, for her own gratification.

“_Until death do us part_,” the promise reads: not simply for a few years, at the end of which time the whole domestic economy may become deranged simply for personal pleasure, apart from the family.

We see nothing that this dissatisfied woman has to complain of, but are inclined to think she has been infected with those pernicious doctrines which have led to loud complaints about women,--defrauded of her _rights_, woman’s cruel subjugation,--doctrines with which we have less and less patience, because we see more and more clearly the mistakes and mischief which have sprung and will continue to spring from them, unless the “plague is stayed.” No doubt many a woman is oppressed and treated unkindly, often cruelly, and made to feel that she is placed by her husband in a subordinate position, instead of reigning _with_ him over their home,--his other self with equal rights and power, as is only meet,--having charge of one department, while he takes another for which his stronger organization and peculiar masculine abilities are better adapted. The husband to superintend the outside, severer duties: the wife as God prepared her to be, the mother watching over infancy, and through those duties made less physically strong, but giving grace and refinement to the home, which, without her,--under masculine supervision,--would degenerate into coarseness and inelegance.

We know there are many overtaxed, broken-down women who by kindness and just appreciation might have been saved, and remained altogether lovely and refined, making their homes like Paradise before the fall.

There are also many broken-down men, dispirited, uneasy of life, ruined by the frivolity, irritability, and extravagance of their wives, whom a refined, sensible, loving woman, would have redeemed and made happy, noble, and godlike.

We imagine the rights and the wrongs are about equally divided on either side. The deceitfulness of the human heart, the natural depravity, unsubdued, left to run wild and ungoverned, seeking not the peace and happiness of the chosen partner, but their own selfish gratification, has changed many a noble man into a reckless, uncomfortable, unprincipled husband, or an arbitrary and harsh domestic tyrant. And the same selfish indulgence and unregulated passions have also changed many a woman, capable of shining in her appropriate sphere as mother, or home refiner, into an irritable, unsatisfied fireside torment.

But this is wandering from the main point, through a train of thoughts very naturally evoked by the perusal of the letter referred to. We believe many homes are injured and much dissatisfaction and unhappiness occasioned by the greatly increased disposition to travel; roaming each year away from home, and too frequently without the companionship which should naturally be secured. A man is often compelled by business to be absent from home for weeks, or even months, to go abroad, and frequently when it would be impossible for him to take his wife with him. Often one _must_ go for health, while it is important that the other should remain at home to look after their common interests. These are misfortunes which cannot be avoided, and must be borne from necessity, not from choice.

But when we see either _desiring_ to roam, “to go a pleasuring” alone, when both cannot go, we wonder at the folly which is laying the foundation for bitter regret in later years. The marriage ceremony is but a mockery, if the two who exchange vows are not expecting to find their chief earthly joys in each other’s society. But when they can bring their minds to a separation of weeks or months, just for pleasure, we think they little dream of the heartaches they are laying up in store for one another.

Keep together while you can. Death will sever the bond, all too soon, or sickness compel absence, full of fear and sad forebodings. It is impossible for a husband and wife to be absent from each other often, even for a few weeks at a time, without finding little changes on their return. Every one has some peculiarities of character and disposition which are not exactly congenial; but if married young, before habits or traits are fixed past change, all these little infelicities are softened or lost sight of in daily communion, and man and wife assimilate, and grow more and more of one heart and one mind, if happily mated. But let these separations, even of short duration, once begin, and they soon grow apart. The natural traits and dissimilarities which constant association have held dormant wake up, and are less and less easily lulled to sleep after each separation.

We think women are more injured by this roving than men. The latter are seldom long absent, except on business, with no leisure for pleasure-seeking while away; and in their necessarily rapid traveling, the hurry, the annoyance, the loss of creature comforts, which are found in greater perfection at home, are more felt, and usually the comforts and luxuries of their own fireside are more fully appreciated on their return. In the whirl of business while absent, they have little temptation to take up any unusual line of thought or action. But a woman, unless she _must_ go for her health, more frequently travels to have a “good time,” throwing aside all cares, instead of taking them with her as her husband does. In this freedom, she at once enters upon a mode of life altogether different from that which a wife, mother, or housekeeper can have at home. Her love of nicety and order is less disturbed when she has only herself to care for; and a selfish habit, a feeling of entire independence, is easily established, so that when she returns home she finds it difficult to take up again what was once a pleasure, but now seems more like the “burden of life.” The noise and confusion of children or much company, for the care of which she feels responsible, are far more irksome than before her “pleasure trip.” She does not find the yoke so easy or the burden so light. The habit of being interested in or sharing one another’s cares, reporting little items of daily news when together, is destroyed, and without any intentional unkindness they have learned to turn to others for the amusement or the social intercourse which was once a part of their life.

These are not intentional _slights_, but the changes which repeated absence most naturally brings. A woman sees the changes much sooner than a man,--sees, grieves over them, and is made unhappy by them, if she loves her husband, though often too proud to let it be known. If _pleasure trips_ are frequent or of long duration, these changes are more marked. Husbands and wives, who were once made uncomfortable and restless if one meal passed unshared, learn after a while, by frequent separations, to let many pass with but little regret. Separation has lost its former importance in their eyes. Why should it not be so? If _death_ divides them, however true the sorrow, time after a while must bring healing; and the heart, although there will always be a niche which no one else can occupy, must, after many days, turn for comfort and companionship to other, if not better friends. Sometimes, perhaps, in a younger and fairer, the old love is entirely lost sight of.

Let this discontented wife, who, after eight years of married life and the care of home and three children, feels that she should be indulged in a vacation and freedom from these responsibilities, ponder well the probable consequences of the steps she desires to take in opposition to her husband’s wishes. To secure the short-lived pleasure of a few months’ travel, can she afford to risk the many changes she may expect on her return? Will she be willing to see that her husband has less confidence in her, less desire for her society, than formerly; that he has learned that there are many comforts and pleasures to be found outside his home? Is the gratification worth the price she may be called to pay for it?

We have not put this subject in as clear and strong a light as we desired; but if what we have said may have sufficient weight to lead this “wife,” and others who are showing indications of having been infected with the same restless, dissatisfied spirit, to think long and soberly before they decide, we shall be thankful. We do not believe a true-hearted, sensible wife would willingly desert her post or seek any enjoyment in which her family cannot share.

Keep your families unbroken; together share each other’s joys and sorrows, so far as possible, until death severs the bond. That is the wisest, happiest way of living. When death compels separations, you will have enough to regret, without mourning for the days needlessly spent apart.