| The Way of Victory |
Chapter 5 |
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That husband would be a miserable wretch whose heart did not trust in such a woman. He can trust her in every way. He knows that she is true and faithful to him, for this woman is as far from such flirtations as are often heard of in modern society gossip as the angels are from sin. He can trust her also with the management of her part of his affairs. She is not extravagant. She is not wasteful. She is not a mere bill of expense. She is not a costly luxury. Her husband need have no anxiety about her end of the finances. John Bright’s wife said to him at their marriage, “ John, attend to thy business and thy public affairs, and I will provide for the house and relieve thee of all cares at home.” He never had occasion to carry any burden of care in his wife’s domain. That is the ideal division of burden in the household life.
One day, after long years of wedded life and of work together on the field, Mrs. Moffat said of her husband, to another in his presence, “Robert can never say that I hindered him in his work.” He promptly assented, speaking in highest terms of praise of her helpfulness. She had never been a hinderer in the slightest way, but always a sharer of burdens, an aid in counsel, a strong help at every point. She was like the woman of Proverbs — She will do her husband good all the days of her life.
Every woman who consents to become the wife of a good man ought to settle it in her mind at the very beginning, before she enters the sacred relation, that she will never make life or work harder for her husband, will never hinder him in his business or in his duties, but will “do him good and not evil all the days of her life.” It is said that in these days thousands of thoughtful young men are not marrying because they cannot afford it. Young women, they say, are not willing to live plainly and humbly for a time while the foundations of future competence or fortune are laid, but expect to begin where their parents have climbed through twenty or thirty years of patient, self-denying toil. This is not the spirit of the woman of the lesson. She is ready to go with her husband into a plain little house and begin by his side to work and save, that together they may rise to greater comfort and larger things.
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