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Duties of the Husband and the Wife
267
of an opportunity or an excuse to release herself from home cares
and responsibilities, and permits others to perform the duties in her
family that she should educate herself to love to do. She cannot
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perform her part as a wife and mother until she shall educate herself
in this direction. She lacks confidence in herself. She is timid and
retiring, and distrustful of herself. She has a very poor opinion of
what she does, and this discourages her from doing more. She needs
encouragement; she needs words of tenderness and affection. She
has a good spirit. She is meek and quiet, and the Lord loves her; yet
she should make thorough efforts to correct these evils which tend
to make her family unhappy. Practice in these things will give her
confidence in her own ability to perform her duties aright.
You and your wife are opposite in your organizations. You love
order and neatness, and have a nice taste, and quite good government.
As a husband, you are rather stiff and stern. You fail to take a
course to encourage confidence and familiarity in your wife. Her
deficiencies have led you to regard her as inferior to yourself, and
have also caused her to feel that you thus regard her. God esteems
her more highly than yourself; for your ways are crooked before
Him. For the sake of her husband and children, and for other reasons,
she should seek to correct her deficiencies and to improve in those
things wherein she now fails. She can do it if she will try hard
enough.
God is displeased with disorder, slackness, and a lack of thor-
oughness, in anyone. These deficiencies are serious evils and tend to
wean the affections of the husband from the wife when the husband
loves order, well-disciplined children, and a well-regulated house.
A wife and mother cannot make home agreeable and happy unless
she possesses a love for order, preserves her dignity, and has good
government; therefore all who fail on these points should begin at
once to educate themselves in this direction and cultivate the very
things wherein is their greatest lack. Discipline will do much for
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those who are lacking in these essential qualifications. Sister R gives
up to these failings, and thinks that she cannot do otherwise than she
does. After she has made a trial, and fails to see decided improve-
ment in herself, she is discouraged. This must not be. The happiness
of herself and her family depend upon her arousing herself, and
working with earnestness and zeal to make a decided reformation in