Therefore, dear girls, listen to your common sense, and stop immediately when you feel that, either in work or play, you are getting overtired.
Finally, let us consider what these three economies united will effect. Each is good in itself, but happy is he who practises all three with the ever-present thought that God is to be the end of all, for he will be gaining wisdom, which "is better than rubies," and "whoso findeth wisdom findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the Lord." "Wisdom! how inexhaustible a theme! It is the ripest fruit of a well-spent life. Wisdom never grows old, for she is the expression of order itself--that is, of the eternal. Only the wise man draws from life, and from every stage of it, its true savour, because only he feels the beauty, the dignity, and the value of life.... To see all things in God, to make of one's own life a journey towards the ideal, to live with gratitude and devoutness, with gentleness and courage, to add to these the humility which kneels and the charity which gives, is the true wisdom of the children of God."
The village architecture of England, though more ancient than that to be found elsewhere in Europe, does not date so far back as the ecclesiastical. There are many reasons why this is the case. The churches and monasteries were erected with great solidity, because, being for religious uses, it was presumed that they would be required for all times, but the more humble domestic dwellings were rather constructed with a view to the wants of those who had to live in them. Then also, the church was subscribed for not only by those who lived in the immediate neighbourhood, but often by the powerful and wealthy, who, though not being connected directly with the locality, were moved by charity and generosity to assist in works of piety.
The cottages in early times were probably of a very humble character, built of "wattle," or osier twigs intertwined like an ordinary basket, and plastered over with mud or clay. In eastern countries, Egypt for instance, the heat of the sun was sufficient to convert this clay or mud into what is called "crude brick," which was very durable, but in England it required constant renewal, and in the course of time the wattle rotted away from damp. In marshy districts the cottages were built of turf or peat, as is still the case in parts of Ireland and Scotland. Upon the borders of Staffordshire and Worcestershire, curious caves are to be found which are in some cases still inhabited, and are probably among the earliest human habitations in this country. Some of the Derbyshire caves also were converted into habitations, and many of the holes burrowed in the cliffs all round our coast were similarly utilised. In after times they became very convenient hiding-places for smugglers and their illicit wares.