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To a Minister’s Wife
497
of an invalid, and fail to be helpful and do what you can to lighten
the burdens you make. You fail to realize that frequently the very
ones who wait on you are no more able to perform the extra task
than you are. You lean on others, and lay your whole weight upon
them. I have no evidence that God has called you to do a special
work in traveling.
You have an education to obtain that you do not yet possess.
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Who can so well instruct the child as the mother? Who can so well
learn the defects in her own organization and in her child’s as the
mother while in the performance of the duties which Heaven has
allotted her? The fact that you do not love this work is no evidence
that it is not the work which the Lord has assigned you. You have
not sufficient physical or mental strength to make it an object for
you to travel. You wish to be ministered unto, instead of ministering
to others. You are not helpful enough to offset the burden you are to
your husband and to those around you.
Those who cannot wisely manage their own child or children
are not qualified to act wisely in church matters or to deal with wiry
minds subject to Satan’s special temptations. If they can cheerfully
and lovingly perform the part required of them as parents, then they
can better understand how to bear burdens in the church. Dear sister,
I advise you to make a good wife to your husband and a good home
for him. Rely upon your own resources, and lean less heavily upon
him. Arouse yourself to do the very work which the Lord would
have you do. You are inclined to be anxious to do some great work,
to fill some large mission, and neglect the small duties right in your
path, which are just as necessary to be accomplished as the larger.
You walk over these and aspire to a larger work. Let your ambition
be aroused to be useful, to be a workman in the world instead of a
spectator.
My dear sister, I speak plainly; for I dare not do otherwise. I
plead with you to take up life’s burdens instead of shunning them.
Help your husband by helping yourself. The ideas which you both
hold of the dignity to be maintained by the minister are not in accor-
dance with the example of our Lord. The minister of Christ should
possess sobriety, meekness, love, long-suffering, forbearance, pity,
and courtesy. He should be circumspect, elevated in thought and
conversation, and of blameless deportment. This is gospel dignity.
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