Home Education
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trolled wills, were painfully apparent to others. Ill-formed characters,
mismatched pieces of humanity, indeed they were, yet the mother was
blind to it all. The arrangement of her house was of more consequence
to her than the symmetry of her children’s character.
Cleanliness and order are Christian duties, yet even these may be
carried too far, and made the one essential, while matters of greater
importance are neglected. Those who neglect the interests of the
children for these considerations are tithing the mint and cummin,
while they neglect the weightier matters of the law,—justice, mercy,
and the love of God.
Those children who are the most indulged become willful, pas-
sionate, and unlovely. Would that parents could realize that upon
judicious, early training depends the happiness of both the parents and
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the children. Who are these little ones that are committed to our care?
They are the younger members of the Lord’s family. “Take this son,
this daughter,” He says, “nurse them for me, and fit them up ‘that they
may be polished after the similitude of a palace,’ that they may shine
in the courts of the Lord.” Precious work! Important work! Yet we
see mothers sighing for a wider field of labor, for some missionary
work to do. If they could only go to Africa or India, they would feel
that they were doing something. But to take up the little daily duties
of life, and to carry them forward faithfully, perseveringly, seems to
them an unimportant thing. Why is this? Is it not often because the
mother’s work is so rarely appreciated? She has a thousand cares and
burdens of which the father seldom has any knowledge. Too often he
returns home bringing with him his cares and business perplexities
to overshadow the family, and if he does not find everything just to
his mind at home, he gives expression to his feelings in impatience
and faultfinding. He can boast of what he has achieved through the
day, but the mother’s work, to his mind, amounts to little, or is at
least undervalued. To him her cares appear trifling. She has only to
cook the meals, look after the children, sometimes a large family of
them, and keep the house in order. She has tried all day to keep the
domestic machinery running smoothly. She has tried, though tired and
perplexed, to speak kindly and cheerfully, and to instruct the children
and keep them in the right path. All this has cost effort, and much
patience on her part. She cannot, in her turn, boast of what she has
done. It seems to her as though she has accomplished nothing. But it