Self-Exaltation
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all such opposition was instigated by the temptations of the enemy.
This has made you more persistent in carrying out your own ideas,
regardless of the wishes of others.
You are in danger of having trouble because you are unwilling to
grant liberty of judgment and opinion to those connected with you. It
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is well for you to remember that their ways and their opinions may be
as dear to them as yours are to you. We are very apt to lose sight of this
fact when we censure others for not agreeing with us. You govern the
members of your family too rigidly. You are very punctilious in giving
them line upon line and precept upon precept; and if they venture to
differ with you, it only renders you more determined to act according
to your own mind, and to show that you are master in your own house,
and that you are not to be interfered with.
You seem to consider that it is enough for you to say that a thing
must be done in order to have it done in the very manner you indicate.
In this arbitrary way you often place your mind and judgment between
your family and their own good sense of what is right and proper under
the circumstances. You have made a sad mistake in breaking down the
will and judgment of your wife, and requiring her to unquestionably
yield to your superior wisdom or bring discord into the home.
You should not seek to rule the actions of your wife, or treat her as
a servile dependent. Never lift yourself above her, and excuse yourself
by thinking: “She is inexperienced and inferior to me.” Never seek to
unreasonably bend her will to yours, for she has an individuality that
can never be merged in yours. I have seen many families shipwrecked
through overmanagement on the part of their head, whereas through
consultation and agreement all might have moved off harmoniously
and well.
My brother, you are self-conceited. You go out of your proper
province in order to exercise your authority. You imagine that you
understand the best way of doing the work in your kitchen. You
have your own peculiar ideas of how everything should be done in
the working department, and you expect all to adapt themselves like
machinery to these ideas and observe the particular order that pleases
you.
These efforts to bring your friends into a position where they will
meekly yield every wish and inclination to your will are vain and
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futile. All minds are not molded alike, and it is well that it is so, for