This is quite beautiful…by J.R. Miller at the turn of the 20th century.
The wife has a responsibility. The prosaic arts of housekeeping are far more important factors of home happiness than many people without experience imagine.
Kuskin talks to young women of the etymology of the name wife: “What do you think the beautiful word ‘wife’ comes from?” he asks. “It means ‘weaver.’ You must either be housewives or house-moths, remember that.
“In the deep sense, you must weave men’s fortunes, and embroider them, or feed upon them, and bring them to decay.
“Wherever a true wife comes, home is always around her. The stars may be the canopy over her head, the glowworm in the night’s cold grass be the fire at her feet, but home is where she is; and for a noble woman it stretches far around her, — better than houses ceiled with cedar, or painted with vermilion, shedding its quiet light for those who else were homeless.”
Home is the true wife’s kingdom. There, first of all places, she must be strong and beautiful.
She may touch life outside in many ways, if she can do it without slighting the duties that are hers within her own doors. But if any calls for her service must be declined, they should not be the duties of her home. These are hers, and no other one’s.
Very largely does the wife hold in her hands, as a sacred trust, the happiness and the highest good of the hearts that nestle there.
The best husband — the truest, the noblest, the gentlest, the richest-hearted — cannot make his home happy if his wife be not, in every reasonable sense, a helpmate to him.
In the last analysis, home happiness does depend on the wife. Her spirit gives the home its atmosphere. Her hands fashion its beauty. Her heart makes its love. And the end is so worthy, so noble, so divine, that no woman who has been called to be a wife, and has listened to the call, should consider any price too great to pay, to be the light, the joy, the blessing, the inspiration, of a home.
Men with fine gifts think it worthwhile to live to paint a few great pictures which shall be looked at and admired for generations; or to write a few songs which shall sing themselves into the ears and hearts of men.
But the woman who makes a sweet, beautiful home, filling it with love and prayer and purity, is doing something better than anything else her hands could find to do beneath the skies.
“The good wife is a good housekeeper. I know well how unromantic this remark will appear to those whose dreams of married life are woven of the fancies of youthful sentimentality. But these frail dreams of sentimentality will not last long amid the stern realities of life, and then that which will prove one of the rarest elements of happiness and blessing in the household, will be housewifely industry and diligence. ” – J.R. Miller
Sunflower & Blue! Feminine and Beautiful!
Fully lined, quality material, made with care and detail. Available here.
\
Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence
To trust in God’s will is the “secret of happiness and content,” the one sure-fire way to attain serenity in this world and salvation in the next. Trustful Surrender simply and clearly answers questions that many Christians have regarding God’s will, the existence of evil, and the practice of trustful surrender, such as:
- How can God will or allow evil?
- Why does God allow bad things to happen to innocent people?
- Why does God appear not to answer our prayers?
- What is Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence?
This enriching classic will lay to rest many doubts and fears and open the door to peace and acceptance of God’s will. TAN’s pocket-sized edition helps you to carry it wherever you go, to constantly remind yourself that God is guarding you. He does not send you any joy too great to bear or any trial too difficult to overcome.
The Golden Arrow: The Revelations of Sr. Mary of St. Peter
Born in 1816 in Brittany, France, Sister Mary of Saint Peter lost her mother at age 12. Soon after entering the Carmelite convent at Tours in 1839 at age 23, she began to receive remarkable and intimate communications from Our Lord, Who told her of His great distressed over the evil actions and blasphemous declarations of the Marxist revolutionaries of the time. He also bemoaned the indifference to and profanation of Sunday and Holy Days of Obligation of even Christians. These errors, begun in Sister Mary’s time, have grown monstrously ingrained in our present fearful age.
But the Lord provided Sister Mary over a century and a half ago with the means of fighting these catastrophes and making solemn reparation: devotion to His Holy Face. In addition, He gave her a prayer, a “Golden Arrow” fit to pierce His Heart delightfully, in reparation for the painful “poison arrows” of blasphemy launched by so many poor sinners, even children.
The Golden Arrow tells of both the life of Sister Mary of Saint Peter and her life’s work: the devotion, granted to her by Jesus Himself, to His Holy Face. Approved by Pope Leo XIII and promoted by St. Therese of Lisieux half a century later, the devotion to the Holy Face may be the single most important devotion of our time that still remains relatively unknown.
In our age so sorely afflicted by the same grievous errors as Sister Mary of Saint Peter’s, learn to adore Our Blessed Savior’s wounded Face, so as to make reparation for the sacrileges and blasphemies of our decadent age.
May the most Holy, most Sacred, most Adorable,
Most Incomprehensible and Ineffable Name of God
Be always Praised, Blessed, Loved, Adored and Glorified,
In Heaven, on Earth and in Hell,
By all the Creatures of God,
And by the Sacred Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ,
In the most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.
Amen.
This post contains affiliate links. Thank you for your support.
He writes so well and makes it really sounds like the best place on earth. 😇
Thank you.