ddenness of their zeal for opening new
paths for her feet, they have not sufficiently considered the
propriety of straightening, widening, and mending the one broad, good
old path of domestic labor, established by God himself. It does appear
to me, that, if at least a portion of their zeal could be spent in
removing the stones out of this highway of domestic life, and making
it pleasant and honorable, they would effect even more. I would not
have them leave undone what they are doing; but I would, were I worthy
to be considered, humbly suggest to their prophetic wisdom and
enthusiasm, whether, in this new future of women which they wish to
introduce, women's natural, God-given employment of _domestic service_
is not to receive a new character, and rise in a new form.

"'To love and serve' is a motto worn with pride on some aristocratic
family shields in England. It ought to be graven on the Christian
shield. _Servant_ is the name which Christ gives to the _Christian_;
and in speaking of his kingdom as distinguished from earthly kingdoms,
he distinctly said, that rank there should be conditioned, not upon
desire to command, but on willingness to serve.

"'Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over
them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it
shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let
him be your minister; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him
be your _servant_.'

"Why is it, that this name of servant, which Christ says is the
highest in the kingdom of heaven, is so dishonored among us professing
Christians, that good women will beg or starve, will suffer almost any
extreme of poverty and privation, rather than accept home, competence,
security, with this honored name?"

"The fault with many of our friends of the Woman's Rights order," said
my wife, "is the depreciatory tone in which they have spoken of the
domestic labors of a family as being altogether below the scope of
the faculties of woman. '_Domestic drudgery_' they call it,--an
expression that has done more harm than any two words that ever were
put together.

"Think of a woman's calling clear-starching and ironing domestic
drudgery, and to better the matter turning to typesetting in a grimy
printing office! Call the care of china and silver, the sweeping of
carpets, the arrangement of parlors and sitting-rooms, drudgery; and
go into a factory and spend the day amid the whir and c