FARMEKS' INSTITUTES. 339 



four hired men and husband take all her time, so this day, of all others the 

 busiest, she is very late with her work. Poor woman ! No wonder she looked 

 sad and weary, and moved so languidly about. Allow me to say this is but one 

 case out of a thousand similar. How many wives and mothers work like this 

 all their lives (and they are generally brief ones), toiling without one week of 

 rest, without any respite from work, no chance to read, no time to think about 

 anytliing but her work ; revolving from kitchen to pantry, from pantry to cel- 

 lar, and back to the kitchen again, from thence to the dining apartment, and 

 through the back door to the wood pile, traveling miles every day. With all 

 this burden of responsibilities can we wonder that women, with the ills and 

 cares of maternity, at last grow pale, fretful, and nervous? It is wrong, all 

 wrong, this wearing out the body while the soul muse go uncared for, unnur- 

 tured by reading and study, undisciplined by meditation, with hardly a moment 

 to instruct the little ones whose minds arc aspiring and grasping for food, and 

 then perchance, when they most need a mother's tender love and counsel, she 

 lies down too weary to rise again, and they are motherless. Ah, mothers, think 

 of this, and remember that to your children the wide world cannot supply a 

 mother's place; it can give no love so lasting and true as that of a faithful 

 mother. If your husband says he cannot get along without three or four meuy 

 tell him you must at least have one servant to assist you. If he says it is too 

 expensive, tell him so is it expensive to hire men, and with just one-third of 

 what it costs to hire one man a month you can get a good girl to assist you that 

 time. But men there are who tliink their wives never work hard. Oh, no ;. 

 nothing to do but cook a little and wash a few dishes ! I am glad that all meu 

 are not like this ; I hope only a small number are ; but when I look about and 

 see so many wives and mothers who are but slaves to their husbands and chil- 

 dren, I question the cause. It cannot be that G-od designed either man or woman 

 to labor so incessantly as many do. Surely at the last He will require the talent 

 committed to us with usury. And if in our haste to accumulate worldly goods 

 we have neglected to feed and nourish the soul, what sliall it jorofit us? One 

 Avho spends his life battling with the elements is apt to lose his keen sense of 

 the refinements of life, as well as of fatigue and exposure. His sensibilities are- 

 blunted, not only to pain, but to some of the subtler sources of pleasure. So>, 

 too, of the farmer to a certain extent. He goes through a hardening procesS). 

 the results of which are excellent within a certain limit; if they go beyond that 

 limit they are productive of harm. 



Let us take an extreme case to illustrate the idea. Here is a farmer who was 

 trained by his father in the manual duties of his vocation, and then kept at 

 work like a mere machine. By the time he had reached his majority his habits 

 were formed and he steadily pursued the same path without once inquiring for 

 ' ' a more excellent way." He gained money slowly but steadily, by working many 

 hours of every day, and laying by as much as possible of what he earned. He 

 indulged in nothing which cost money, and did not produce it^ though it might 

 yield a rich harvest of fine thoughts and delightful emotions. All such groAvth 

 was nonsense. He preferred something profitable, as corn and potatoes. His 

 wife baked, scrubbed, stitched and kept the household in order. If she set. 

 out a rose bush he dug it up and rej^laced it by a plant or shrub worth some- 

 thing, only tolerating sunflowers because they provided food for poultry. Her 

 love of the beautiful in nature must receive satisfaction in beds of sage and 

 summer savory, as they were useful plants. He considered it mere folly to- 

 spend any of his money in educating his sons and daugliters, saying that ''book 



