Having contemplated a part of the duties growing out of special domestic relations, let us now advert to a few of the prominent moral virtues, for whose culture home is peculiarly congenial.
I begin with what some may regard as hardly to be dignified with the name of duty. But if Health be essential to happiness, and the basis,--as it doubtless is,--of several Christian qualities, who shall deny the sacred title of duty, to the care of the physical system? Whence proceed that morbid sensitiveness, that sickly sentimentalism, and that puny selfishness, which sometimes mark the delicate woman? They spring from ill health; and while no means are employed to remove the root of these moral evils, in vain will the branches of each month or each day of her life be pruned diligently away. If there be no muscular energy the nerves become irritable, and the temper a source of perpetual disquiet, not only to one's self, but to every associate in the household.
It is therefore a duty of the young woman, for health's sake, not to allow a kind mother to become her waiting maid, but to exert herself in the performance of domestic, manual services. If she permit the needle to engross those hours, a part of which should be sacredly devoted to physical exercise, then let her know that God is thereby dishonored; for laws, which he thought worthy to establish, are, by her negligence, daily and directly violated.
Home is a moral school for the acquisition of habits of Industry. It is a singular fact that, while every young man is trained to a regular occupation,--even the sons of the wealthiest are so,--and to have no business or calling is, with this sex, deemed a reproach, young ladies are, in some circles, not only excused in indolence, but regarded as disgraced, if they are industrious and useful. Is this a pure state of society? Are not all who thus judge, and all who thus live, sadly deluded?
God has wedded industry and happiness, and ordained that they shall never be divorced. Idleness corrodes the mental faculties, and thus causes depression and gloom. It is the disturber of conscience; for nothing makes us so miserable, as the thought that we are wasting our lives, and are drones in society. Blessed are the poor; for they know the sweets of toil. Pitiable are the rich, if their treasures generate a selfish indolence.