s bound as ever to show them submission and devotion; all, in
short, that the old-fashioned believers in the Fifth Commandment thought
to be due from a daughter. If you are striving after a noble life you must
give all this,--if you owe allegiance to either the Christian ideal of
love or to the Pagan one of strength. "If a man love not his brother whom
he hath seen, how can he love God Whom he hath not seen?" and, equally, if
he love not his brother close at hand, how can he love brethren afar off?
It is a poor sort of love which lavishes itself on self-chosen and,
therefore, less irritating objects of charity, and is powerless to
influence the home atmosphere. It is a poor sort of strength which shrinks
from the hardest fight, from the conquest of self at home.

Is not every right and wise piece of good work for others an attempt to
help them to train themselves to live a higher life? And can we dare to
put our hand to this plough while neglecting our own training?

I was asked to speak to you about WORK, and you may think I am forgetting
this in dwelling on home life. Not at all; I am looking on home life not
as an end in itself, but as God's great training-school for His best
workers; as the special place for the development of those qualities which
are essential to all true and lasting work for "the Relief of Man's
Estate."

I do not think I underrate the difficulties girls find; quite apart from
her own faults and weaknesses, a girl who leaves school and goes home has
probably three difficulties to contend with.

First, the change from restraint to liberty, which is a difficult phase in
every life. Will you make it a change from "the rich bounties of
constraint" to self-restraint, which is better still; or will you let it
be a change to the weak lawlessness of a drifting life? If you would
respect yourselves, and be worthy to take part in the great battle between
good and evil, make and keep some rules for yourselves. Have a rule about
getting up in the morning and (almost equally important) about going to
bed at night; a rule against novels in the morning; a rule to read
something sensible every day. Make what rule you please, only keep it, or
you will never be more than a cumberer of the ground. Reading is the best
thing to save your life from being eaten away by trifles. The best
advisers say to a man taking a country living, "Read, read, read;" I say
to you, read doggedly; the snare of a free life is desultor