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Page 6
Look, then, with prayer and watchfulness into all the details of your
daily life, and you will assuredly find much formerly-unnoticed "stuff,"
out of which "your ideal" may be wrought.
You may, for instance, have no opportunity of teaching on an enlarged
scale, or even of taking a class at a Sunday-school, or of instructing
any of your poor neighbours in reading or in the word of God. Such
labours of love may, it is possible, though not probable, be shut out of
your reach: if, however, you are on the watch for opportunities, (and we
are best made quick-sighted to their occurrence in the course of the
day, by the morning's earnest prayer for their being granted to us,) you
may be able to help your fellow-pilgrims Zion-ward in a variety of small
ways. "A word in season, how good is it!" the mere expression of
religious sympathy has often cheered and refreshed the weary traveller
on his perhaps difficult and lonely way. A verse of Scripture, a hymn
taught to a child, only the visitor of a day, has often been blessed by
God to the great spiritual profit of the child so taught. Are not even
such small works of love within your reach?
Again, with respect to family duties, I know that in some cases, when
there are many to fulfil such duties, it is a more necessary and often a
more difficult task to refrain altogether from interfering in them. They
ought to be allowed to serve as a safety-valve for the energies of those
members of the family who have no other occupations: of these there will
always be some in a large domestic circle. Without, however,
interfering actively and habitually, which it may not be your duty to
do, are you always ready to help when you are asked, and to take trouble
willingly upon yourself, when the excitement and the credit of the
arrangement will belong exclusively to others? This is a good sign of
the humility and lovingness of your spirit: how is the test borne?
Further, you may complain that your conversation is not valued, and that
therefore you have no excitement to exertion for the amusement of
others; that your cheerfulness and good temper under sorrows and
annoyances are of no consequence, as you are not considered of
sufficient importance for any display of feeling to attract attention.
When I hear such complaints, and they are not unfrequent from the
younger members of large families, I have little doubt that the sting in
all these murmurs is infixed by their pride. They assure me, at the same
time, that if there was any one to care much about it, to watch
anxiously whether they were vexed or pleased, they would be able to
exercise the strictest control over their feelings and temper,--and I
believe it, for here their pride and their affection would both come to
the assistance of duty. What God requires of us, however, is its
fulfilment when all these things are against us. The effort to control
grief, to conceal depression, to conquer ill-temper, will be a far more
acceptable offering in his eyes, when they alone are expected to witness
it. That which now his eyes alone see will one day be proclaimed upon
the housetop.[11]
I must, besides, remind you that your proud spirit may deceive you when
it suggests, that because your sadness or your ill-humour attracts no
expressed notice or excites no efforts to remove it, it does not
therefore affect those around you. This is not the case; even the gloom
and ill-humour of a servant, who only remains a few minutes in
attendance, will be depressing and annoying to the most unobservant
master and mistress, though they might make no efforts to remove it. How
much more, then, may your want of cheerfulness and sweet temper affect,
though it may be insensibly, the peace of your family circle. Here you
are again seeking great things for yourself, and neglecting your
appointed work, because it does not to you appear sufficiently worthy of
your high capabilities. Your proud spirit needs being humbled, and
therefore, probably, it is that you will not be allowed to do great
things. No, you must first learn the less agreeable task of doing small
things, of doing what would perhaps be called easy things by those who
have never tried them. To wear a contented look when you know that,
perhaps, the effort will not be observed, certainly not appreciated,--to
take submissively the humblest part in the conversation, and still bear
cheerfully that part,--to bear with patience every hasty word that may
be spoken, and so to forget it that your future conduct may be
uninfluenced by it,--to remove every difficulty, the removal of which is
within your reach, without expecting that the part you have taken will
be acknowledged or even observed,--to be always ready with your
sympathy, encouragement, and counsel, however scornfully they may have
before been rejected; these are all acts of self-renunciation which are
peculiarly fitted to a woman's sphere of duty, and have a direct
tendency to cherish the difficult and excellent grace of humility; they
may, however, help to foster rather than to subdue a spirit of
discontent, if they are performed from a motive of obtaining any, even
the most exalted, human approbation. They must be done to God alone, and
then the promise is sure, "thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward
thee openly."[12] Thus, too, the art of contentment may be much more
easily learnt. Disappointment will surely sour your temper if you look
forward to human appreciation of a self-denying habit of life; but when
the approbation of God is the object sought for, no neglect from others
can excite discontent or much regret. For here there can be no
disappointment: that which comes to us through the day has all been
decreed by him, and as it must therefore give us opportunities of
fulfilling his will, and gaining his approbation, we must necessarily
"be content."
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