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be overcome. She should have a purpose in life which should be
unfalteringly carried out. What if this conflicts with the feelings and
pleasures and natural tastes! These should be cheerfully and readily
sacrificed, in order to do good and save souls.
The wives of ministers should live devoted, prayerful lives. But
some would enjoy a religion in which there are no crosses, and which
calls for no self-denial and exertion on their part. Instead of standing
nobly for themselves, leaning upon God for strength, and bearing their
individual responsibility, they have much of the time been dependent
upon others, deriving their spiritual life from them. If they would only
lean confidingly, in childlike trust, upon God, and have their affections
centered in Jesus, deriving their life from Christ, the living vine, what
an amount of good they might do, what a help they might be to others,
what a support to their husbands; and what a reward would be theirs
in the end! “Well done, good and faithful servant,” would fall like
sweetest music upon their ears. The words, “Enter thou into the joy
of thy Lord,” would repay them a thousand times for all the suffering
[203]
and trials endured to save precious souls.—
Testimonies for the Church
1:451-453
.
* * * * *
If married men go into the work, leaving their wives to care for
the children at home, the wife and mother is doing fully as great and
important a work as is the husband and father. While one is in the
missionary field, the other is a home missionary, whose cares and
anxieties and burdens frequently far exceed those of the husband and
father. The mother’s work is a solemn and important one,—to mould
the minds and fashion the characters of her children, to train them for
usefulness here, and to fit them for the future immortal life.
The husband, in the open missionary field, may receive the honor
of men, while the home toiler may receive no earthly credit for her
labor; but if she works for the best interests of her family, seeking to
fashion their characters after the divine Model, the recording angel
writes her name as one of the greatest missionaries in the world.
* * * * *