The aged women
The dangers and duties of women
I. Women have peculiar dangers according to their age. The older ones are tempted to seek the excitement of stimulants, or of slander; the younger ones to instability of affection, to impurity of life, or other inconsistency of conduct.
II. Women have duties peculiar to their age. The younger have duties of obedience; the middle-aged have the cares of home life; the aged have the instruction of the younger. (F. Wagstaff)
Religious home life
I. True religion is the foundation of home happiness.
II. True religion is the secret of domestic prosperity.
III. True religion at home can alone insure the esteem and respect of those abroad. (F. Wagstaff)
Apostolic advice to the aged women
The gospel revealed the lofty destiny of woman, and it is not surprising that St. Paul should continue his advice to Titus thus: “Enjoin that the aged women in like manner, should preserve in their demeanour holy propriety.” As Jerome has it, “Their gait and motion, their countenance, their speech, and their silence, should exhibit a certain dignity of sacred decorum.” The very word seems to convey the fine thought that there is a consecration, a sacerdotal eminence and sanctity, possible and even normal, in the life of woman. The aged woman should have in her looks and ways something better than the garment of the priest or the aureole of the saint. It is fitting and seemly that she should. The apostle adds a grim touch after this hint of saintly sacerdotal beauty. He knew the temptation of “old women” of both sexes to be censorious, blundering, and self-indulgent, and so he adds, “Let them not be slanderous, nor enslaved by much wine.” They are, moreover, to be “mistresses of honour,” capable of “beautifully instructing” by their word and example those who look up to them for counsel. (H. R. Reynolds, D. D.)
Holiness consists of little duties
Did a holy life consist of one or two noble deeds--some signal specimens of doing, or enduring, or suffering--we might account for the failure, or reckon it small dishonour to turn back in such a conflict, But a holy life is made up of small things of the hour, and not the great things of the age, that fill up a life like that of Paul or John, like that of Rutherford, or Brainerd, or Martyn. The avoidance of little evils, little sins, little inconsistencies, little weaknesses, little follies, little indiscretions and imprudences, little foibles, little indulgences of self, little bits of coveteousness and penuriousness, little exhibitions of worldliness and gaiety, little indifferences to the feelings or wishes of others: the avoidance of such little things as these goes far to make up at least the negative beauty of holy life. And then attention to little duties of the day and hour in public transactions, or private dealings, or family arrangements; to little words, and looks, and tones; little self-denials and self-restraints and self-forgetfulness: these are the active developments of holy life, the rich and Divine mosaics of which it is composed. What makes yon green hill so beautiful? blot the outstanding peak or stately elm, but the bright sward which clothes its slopes, composed of innumerable blades of slender grass. It is of small things that a great life is made up; and he who will acknowledge no life as great, save that which is built up of great things, will find little in Bible character to admire or copy.
The bloom of the aged
A good woman never grows old. Years may pass over her head, but if benevolence and virtue dwell in her heart, she is as cheerful as when the spring of life first opened to her view. When we look upon a good woman we never think of her age; she looks as charming as when the rose of youth first bloomed on her cheek. That rose has not faded yet; it will never fade. In her neighbourhood she is the friend and benefactor. Who does not respect and love the woman who has passed her days in acts of kindness and mercy--who has been the friend of man and God--whose whole life has been a scene of kindness and love and devotion to truth? We repeat, such a woman cannot grow old. She will always be fresh and buoyant in spirit and active in humble deeds of mercy and benevolence. If the young lady desires to retain the bloom and beauty of youth, let her not yield to the sway of fashion and folly; let her love truth and virtue, and to the close of life she will retain those feelings which now make life appear a garden of sweets, ever fresh and ever new. (Great Thoughts.)
Not false accusers.
Rules to avoid false accusing
1. Look to thine own calling and the necessary duties of it, that so following thine own plough, thou mayest have no leisure to intermeddle in other men’s affairs: busy bodies and prattlers are joined by the apostle.
2. Beware of envy, which is still hatching and inventing evil: the saying is true, “Malice never spake well,” but is suspicious, and depraving the best persons and practices, and is one of the greatest enemies of truth, in which God’s image chiefly consisteth.
3. Learn to esteem the good name of thy brother, the next thing to his life, considering the truth of that homely speech, that he that wanteth a good name is half hanged; and there is great reason that those who would have their names tendered by others should tender the good name of others, doing as they would be done unto, which is the golden rule of all equity.
4. In receiving reports excuse parties absent as far as well we can, as also facts done, so far as they may be well interpreted; and where we cannot do so to advise the reporter to look well unto and consider himself. (T. Taylor, D. D.)
False accusation
Often are the most painful wrongs inflicted through the medium of covert inuendoes and malignant insinuations. Half of a fact is a whole falsehood. He who gives the truth a false colouring by a false manner of telling it is the worst of liars. Such was Doeg in his testimony against the priests. He stated the facts in the case, but gave them such an artful interpretation as to impart to them the aspect and influence of the most flagrant falsehoods. It was through the same mode of procedure that our Lord was condemned. A perverse misconstruction was given to His words, so that what was spoken in loyalty to the highest truth, was transformed into treason worthy of death. (E. L. Magoon.)
That they may teach the young women
The education of young women
The young women are mentioned here as under the teaching and authority of the aged. What now are some of the first elements which Paul insists on in the education of a Christian family? He omits many things which one would have supposed to stand high in the list of young ladies’ accomplishments; for example, music, dancing, and the art of binding themselves into the shape of sand glasses. Perhaps the apostle thought them sufficiently advanced in such acquirements, and that therefore he might pass them over in silence. He insists, however, that these aged governesses shall teach the following great elementary principles.
1. That the young woman be sober, wise, of a sound mind, prudent and discreet members of the Church of Christ. The first element, then, in the education of your daughters is wisdom or prudence; and if you begin anywhere else with them, you begin at the wrong end. This wisdom or prudence is not easily defined, but it will appear in the entire character and conduct of their future life; it will enable them to avoid the snares which the ungodly lay for them, and conduct themselves in a manner worthy of the name and the religion of their Redeemer. This prudence is opposed to rashness, enthusiasm, and impulsive resolutions, to which the young mind, and especially the young female mind, is naturally inclined.
2. Then secondly, they are to love their husbands, for without this the house will become a pandemonium, and profligacy and impurity fill the land. Their love to their husbands should be ardent and unchangeable, yielding neither to the seduction of strangers nor to the husband’s coldness and neglect at home.
3. To love their children. It may be asked, Is not this love natural? and if so, where is the necessity for teaching it? I answer, bad habits in society can eradicate many of the principles of our nature, and make us more degraded and unfeeling than the brutes. Edmund Burke relates that J.J. Rousseau would not keep his children in his house, but sent them to be brought up in an hospital; and then remarks, “that bears love their young, and lick them into shape, but bears are not philosophers.” In India the natural love of our offspring was conquered by the tyranny of a terrible custom, and millions of female infants were destroyed in infancy by the mother’s hands! Is the murder of infants altogether unheard of among us? Are there no Foundling hospitals within the bounds of Christendom? Then remember that the Isle of Crete was one of the wickedest places in the world, and the inhabitants mere heathen, and you shall see the force of the exhortation to “love their children.” It is an awful fact, which I first heard of in Hamburgh, that in the continental cities there is a class of old wives, real old devils, who are called “child murderesses,” and whose office it is to save the mother and destroy the child! In this way myriads of innocent infants are sacrificed, and no eye but the eye of God, the mother, and the murderess, ever knows anything about it!
4. They are to be discreet, which is the same as sober, mentioned in the fourth verse; chaste, viz., placing all their happiness in their husbands and families alone; keepers at home, that they may attend to the affairs of the household, and be an example to their children. It is not the duty of a married woman with a family to engage much in public business, even though it should be of the most important kind. Her place is the family circle, and her duty is to stay at home. We may say the same of much visiting. It is impossible to gad about and take care of the family at the same time; and as to the mother handing over her children to the care of servants, and then giving herself little or no concern about them, I say with Edmund Burke that such conduct would be a slander on the instinct of the brutes!
5. Good; they are to be good wives, faithful and diligent in their household duties. Good is a very expressive word, and is used to denote the highest excellence (Acts 11:24). Good (from which our word God comes, the Good One) I take in its most general acceptation to signify the disposition to bless; it is the fountain of kindness within, from which love, mercy, and all gentle and kind actions flow; “obedient to their own husbands, that the Word of God be not blasphemed.” The great duty of the wife is obedience, and in this she is a type of the Church’s obedience and submission to Christ. Love is common to both, though the natural order is that his should go before and hers follow after, as in the case of Christ and the Church; then obedience is her special duty, even as protection and defence are his. The command, probably, has a special reference to wives who were united to unbelieving or heathen husbands, and teaches that grace never delivers us from the obligations of nature--they are, though believing, to be obedient to their husbands though unbelieving, and the husband, though unbelieving, is bound to love, support, and protect his wife, though she is a believer in the gospel. (W. Graham, D. D.)
Pastoral dealings with young women
A delicate tact may be observed in St. Paul’s management of the younger women. To them he does not bid Titus address himself at all. Although he thinks of them as already married, yet the admonitions of the pastor are to pass, as it were, through the lips of the senior matrons. Some of these may have been official “deaconesses” (like Phoebe at Cenchraea), but this is by no means essential to the spirit of his instructions. Whether officially set apart to minister among her own sex, as was the salutary habit of the early Church, or not, it is in the privacy of the home, or the retired gathering for prayer and female industry, that the wholesome influence of a Christian matron of experience and weight of character may most advantageously be exerted. And it is through the familiar intercourse of such “mothers in Israel” with their younger sisters that a Christian minister can most suitably and safely reach the maidens and young housewives of his flock. So at least St. Paul judged. The homely housewifely virtues which are here specified do seem to be best taught by female lips. In seven particulars has this unmarried old man succeeded in covering the circle of a young wife’s duties. Her devotion to husband and babes, her discipline of herself into suitable decorum, her womanly purity, her household industry, her benign sweetness of temper, her due deference to her husband: such are the graces by which within her gracious realm of home the youthful matron is to glorify her Saviour and her God. What a surprising elevation did the gospel confer on woman at its first promulgation! The sudden discovery that “in Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female” might have a tendency at the first to relax somewhat those restraints which sex and marriage impose on woman; but, if the wholesome influence Paul desired could be exerted by matrons of maturer character, it is plain that so far from the Christian wife giving her husband (heathen though he might still be) any cause to speak ill of her new faith--her chastity, her meekness, her diligence, her obedience, would be certain to recommend the gospel in which her soul had found the secret of a behaviour so gracious and so beautiful. (J. O. Dykes, D. D.)
A husband endeared
“I am thankful to the Nihilists for one thing,” says the Czarina. “They have made me love my husband dearly. Our home life has become so different since I began to look on him as though he were under sentence of death. You can’t think how deeply his menaced state attaches me to him.”
A heartless mother reproved by a sparrow
Down in a London slum there lived a working man, his wife, and four children, all wretched and miserable through drink. The drunken wife one evening, wandering about in misery, saw a sparrow pick up a crumb and carry it to her young in her nest. The poor woman turned pale, trembled for a moment, and burst into tears. The day of repentance had come to her. “Oh!” she exclaimed, “that sparrow feeds her young birds, and I neglect my young children. And what for? Drink. Nothing but drink!” And she wrung her hands and wept. Then she arose and went home to pray. She cried unto God in her distress and He sent His message of forgiveness to her soul. Then her face wore a new beauty, and her husband and family looked wonderingly upon her. She kissed them all, one by one, and told them how she had become changed. The husband, under his wife’s teaching, became a Christian, and a happy home, with comfort, peace, and plenty, soon followed. (G. W. McCree.)
A faithful wife
There is nothing upon this earth that can compare with the faithful attachment of a wife; no creature who for the object of her love is so indomitable, so persevering, so ready to suffer and to die. Under the most depressing circumstances, a woman’s weakness becomes mighty power; her timidity becomes fearless courage; all her shrinking and sinking passes away; and her spirit acquires the firmness of marble--adamantine firmness--when circumstances drive her to put forth all her energies under the inspiration of her affections. (D. Webster.)
Influence of a good wife
Oftentimes I have seen a tall ship glide by against the tide as if drawn by some invisible bow line, with a hundred strong arms pulling it. Her sails unfilled, her streamers were drooping, she had neither side wheel nor stern wheel; still she moved on, stately, in serene triumph, as with her own life. But I knew that on the other side of the ship, hidden beneath the great bulk that swam so majestically, there was a little toilsome steam tug, with a heart of fire and arms of iron, that was tugging it bravely on; and I knew that if the little steam tug untwined her arms, and left the ship, it would wallow, and roll about, and drift hither and thither, and go off with the refluent tide, no man knows whither. And so I have known more than one genius, high-decked, full-freighted, idle-sailed, gay-pennoned, who, but for the bare, toiling arms and brave, warm-beating heart of the faithful little wife that nestles close to him, so that no wind or wave could part them, would have gone down with the stream, and have been heard of no more.
Early Christian women
“What women these Christians have!” exclaimed the heathen rhetorician Libanius, on hearing about Anthusa, the mother of John Chrysostom, the famous “golden-mouthed” preacher of the gospel at Constantinople in the fourth century. Anthusa, at the early age of twenty, lost her husband, and thenceforward devoted herself wholly to the education of her son, refusing all offers of further marriage. Her intelligence and piety moulded the boy’s character and shaped the destiny of the man, who, in his subsequent position of eminence, never forgot what he owed to maternal influence. Hence, it would be no overstrained assertion to say that we owe those rich homilies of Chrysostom, of which interpreters of Scriptures still make great use, to the mind and heart of Anthusa.
Another’s love
The intensity of maternal affection was illustrated in the observation of a little boy, who, after reading Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress,” asked his mother which of the characters she liked best. She replied, “Christian, of course: he is the hero of the story.” The dear child responded, “Mother, I like Christiana best, because, when Christian set out on his pilgrimage, he went alone; but, when Christiana started, she took the children with her.”
Christianity at home
I have no faith in that woman who talks of grace and glory abroad, and uses no soap at home. Let the buttons be on the shirts, let the children’s socks be mended, let the roast mutton be done to a turn, let the house be as neat as a new pin, and the home be as happy as home can be; and then, when the cannon balls, and the marbles, and the shots, and even the grains of sand, are all in the box, even then there will be room for those little deeds of love and faith which, in my Master’s name, I seek of you who love His appearing. Serve God by doing common actions in a heavenly spirit, and then, if your daily calling only leaves you cracks and crevices of time, fill them up with holy service. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
True marriage
Husband, in our old Saxon speech meant houseband--the stay of the house; and a wife should be a “help meet” for the husband. She should be a “keeper at home.” Phidias, when he depicted a woman, made her to sit under a snail shell, this signifying, that like the snail she should never be far away from her home. (J. G. Pilkington.)
Discreet
Discretion
A virtue before required both in the minister (Titus 1:8), and in elder men (Titus 2:2), and now in younger women, being a grace requisite for all estates, ages, sexes, and conditions of life; requiring that the reins of affections be subjected unto reason, and moderated by judgment, not suffering a thought to be entertained and settled in the mind which is not first warranted in the Word, without which, if the reins be slacked but a little, the mind is suddenly vanquished, taken, and lead captive of manifold lusts. This grace, then, is the watchman and moderator of the mind, keeping and guarding it from pleasures altogether unlawful, and in lawful curbing and cutting off excess and abuse. It watcheth also over the affections of the heart and actions of the life, resisting all light behaviour, all childish carriage, all unquiet and troublesome passions, such as are suspicions, jealousies, which are the fuels and firebrands of much mischief; and the distempers of flashing anger, rage, and unjust vexation. It suffereth not undutifulness to the husband, unnaturalness towards the children, unmercifulness towards servants, untowardness in her own duties, unthankful meddling with other folks’ affairs. It is a procurer and preservative of many graces, a bond of her own and others’ peace, a settler of the comfort of her life, an ornament of her head, and of her house; which once let her to be disrobed of, she may bid farewell to her family’s welfare; for let any vile affection bear sway but for a little while, as of anger, impatience, excessive grief, intemperance, or any such, how is the whole house in a kind of tumult! which as a commonwealth in the commotion and rising of some one rebel, cannot be composed and settled till the rebel be subdued; which they find too true who in their match were left unto themselves, to make choice of such as wanted then, and yet bare not attained with the fear of God the practice of this virtue. (T. Taylor, D. D.)
Keepers at home
Home the place for women
Not that a woman is never to be found without her house over her head, for many necessary and just occasions call her often abroad, namely
1. As a Christian, the public duties of piety and God’s worship; as also more private duties of love, and works of mercy in visiting and helping the sick and poor.
2. As a wife, both with her husband when he shall require her, and without him for the necessary provision of the household--and such like. But the thing here condemned is the affection of gadding at any or all hours, with disposition of hearing or telling news, or affecting merriments, company, expense or excess, accounting the house rather a prison than a home, and so easily forsaking it without all just occasion.
And justly is this course condemned, for
1. This is a forsaking and flying for the time out of the calling wherein they ought to abide, for their calling is commonly within doors to keep the household in good order, and therefore for them to wander from their own place, is as if a bird should wander from her own nest.
2. This were the highway to become busybodies, for what other more weighty matters call them out of their calling, but to prattle of persons and actions which concern them not? Whence the apostle (1 Timothy 5:13) coupleth these two together, they are idle, and busybodies; which if any wonder how they can be reconciled, thus they are easily: those that are idle in their own duties are busybodies in other men’s; and these busybodies have two special marks to be known by to themselves and others, namely, their open ears and their loose tongues.
3. The Holy Ghost maketh this a note of an whorish woman, she is everywhere but where she should be, sometimes gadding in the streets with Thamar, sometimes in the fields with Dinah, sometimes without at her door, sometimes at her stall, but her feet cannot abide in her house: and if against her will her body be within doors, her heart and senses will be without. Jezebel must be gazing out of the window: whereas if the angel ask where Sarah is, answer will be made, she is in her tent; and the daughters of Sarah will be in their tents, not in the taverns, nor straggling so far abroad but that their husbands can readily answer where they be.
4. What desperate and unavoidable evils do they (and justly) lay themselves open unto, who make no bones of violating the commandment of God? how doth Satan watch all advantages to take them when they are out of their ways? and how easily doth he prevail against them when they have plucked themselves from under God’s protection? Dinah was no sooner assaulted than overcome in her wandering; and Eve no sooner absent from Adam than set upon, and no sooner set upon, than vanquished. (T. Taylor, D. D.)
A worker at home
Here is a note written by Mrs. Garfield to her husband some years ago, and originally designed for no eye but his. It may be helpful to many others whose lot is hard work:--“I am glad to tell that, out of all the toil and disappointments of the summer just ended, I have risen up to a victory; that silence of thought since you have been away has won for my spirit a triumph. I read something like this the other day: ‘There is no healthy thought without labour, and thought makes the labour happy.’ Perhaps this is the way I have been able to climb up higher. It came to me one morning when I was making bread. I said to myself, ‘Here I am, compelled by inevitable necessity to make our bread this summer. Why not consider it a pleasant occupation, and make it so by trying to see what perfect bread I can make?’ It seemed like an inspiration--and the whole of life grew brighter. The very sunshine seemed flowing down through my spirit into the white loaves; and now I believe my table is furnished with better bread than ever before; and this truth--old as creation--seems just now to have become fully mine, that I need not to be the shirking slave of toil, but its regal master, making whatever I do yield its best fruits.” (Christian Age.)
Christian home life
Home is specially Teutonic, word and thing. Teutonic sentiment, we know, from very early times, was proud, elevated, even austere, in regard to the family and the relations of the sexes. This nobleness of heathenism Christianity consecrated and transformed into all the beautiful shapes of household piety, household affection, household purity. The life of home has become the great possession, the great delight, the great social achievement of our race. The absence of this taste for the quiet and unexcited life of home is a formidable symptom in portions of our race across the Atlantic. And when home life with its sanctities, its simplicity, its calm and deep joys and sorrows, ceases to have its charm for us in England, the greatest breakup and catastrophe in English history will not be far off. (Dean Church.)
Obedient to their own husbands
A sermon to young wives
I. Take an interest in all that concerns your husband. When he speaks, listen. When he is depressed try to cheer him. When he is exultant share in his rejoicing. When he is overwhelmed with work see if you can assist him; and certainly never, at such troubled and anxious times, increase his burden by any domestic disorder. Luther had such a wife. She entered into his enthusiasm. She read and prized his books. She surrounded him with the invigorating atmosphere of true love. She helped him in his labours. Lord William Russell had such a wife. She shared with him in all his efforts. Stood by his side in the time of his misfortune. Acted as his secretary when on his trial. Visited him in the Tower of London, and did her best to console him before he was beheaded. Then went back home to train her family to be worthy of the name of so courageous a father. Flaxman, the eminent sculptor, had such a wife. When he ventured on matrimony Sir Joshua Reynolds declared him to be a ruined man. But the future proved the opposite. For thirty-eight years his wife did her utmost to aid him in his calling. Her admiration of his work, and her devotion to his comfort, assisted to make him what Byron pronounced, “the best translator of Dante.” Hood had such a wife. Though a woman of unusual cultivation and literary taste, yet she yielded gracefully to the whims and fancies of her husband. She good humouredly accepted his practical jokes, and became indispensable to his happiness. So much so that Hood could not endure her absence from home. Without her he was restless and impatient. Bishop Wilberforce had such a wife. She entered into his clerical duties and responsibilities. When, after thirteen years of unalloyed comfort, she died, the life of the bishop became tinged with sadness. Hence, referring to his wife, he once wrote, “It is most sad going home. If I went home to her it were beyond all words.” The late Earl of Beaconsfield had such a wife. When, as Benjamin Disraeli, he published “Sybil,” and dedicated it “to the most severe of critics--but a perfect wife,” he let in a flood of light upon the character of the future countess. And nothing could be a stronger proof of her thorough devotion to her husband’s interests, than that afforded by her conduct on one occasion when driving with him to the House of Commons. By accident her finger was crushed in closing the carriage door. Thinking that any cry of pain would disturb the mind of Benjamin, who was deep in the great speech he was that night to deliver, the faithful, sympathetic wife nobly endured the agony without a single word, till her husband was in his place in the House.
II. Let it be manifest that home has the precedence in your thoughts and affections. Hume tells us, in his history, that in the reign of Henry VIII a proclamation was issued forbidding women to meet together for babble and talk, and directing husbands to keep their wives in their houses. Such a proclamation gives us a sorry insight into the domestic life of our ancestors. Society has improved since then. Still, there are now not wanting very strong temptations to gadding about. Never were there more numerous or more attractive exhibitions on view, never were there more frequent or more important public meetings for benevolent and religious purposes, and never were there greater facilities for transition from spot to spot. And, alas! there are some young wives who seem to feel it incumbent on them to be present and assist at every gathering designed to promote some useful enterprise. The result is that home is often neglected, the children run riot, the domestics grow careless, and the husband returns, after a day’s activities and annoyances, to find, what should be a quiet refuge from the world’s turmoil, a deserted, disorderly, cheerless spot. I ask you to remember, young woman, that a wife’s true orbit is home. In ancient Rome a high compliment was paid a queen by the epitaph, “She staid at home and spun.” The ancient Greeks suggested the same feminine duty by carving Venus on a tortoise. In ancient Boeotia, when a bride was conveyed to her husband’s house the wheels of the vehicle in which she travelled thither were burned at the doors, as an intimation that they would not be needed again. So today in Turkey, in India, in Spanish America, and elsewhere seclusion is the true sign of respectability. To be high bred is to be invisible. Whilst, in our own land, though women enjoy freedom to think, and act, and speak, and are denied no rights of real and enduring value, yet they are most trusted and loved by their husbands and families who are good keepers of home, who make their first and foremost study the temporal and spiritual welfare of those nearest at hand and dearest at heart. There is something quaint, however questionable, in the observation of a clergyman who ventured to preach upon the subject of women’s sphere. He chose for his text “Where is thy wife? Behold, she is in the tent.” He started his discourse by the remark: “There she ought to be, and the less she is heard outside the better.” I would qualify that preacher’s words and say: “By all means let her be heard and seen outside the tent if she have fully and faithfully discharged her duty inside the tent. But if to be seen and heard outside she must neglect her own household, then let her keep at home,”
III. Do your utmost to retain the confidence and affection of your husband. As you examine the magnificent monument in Hyde Park, erected in memory of the late Prince Consort, you observe that the only figure that is represented twice is that of the celebrated Michael Angelo. Among the painters he leans upon the chair of Raphael. Among architects and sculptors, he is the middle of a far-famed group. And justly is he thus honoured, for his genius was exceptionally great. But far above his fresco in the Sistine Chapel, far above his “Last Judgment,” far above his cupola of St. Peter’s, far above his “Sleeping Cupid,” which Raphael pronounced worthy of Phidias or Praxiteles, stands the sonnet to his wife. Angelo profoundly loved and adored Vittoria Colonna. When she died he lingered by her corpse, and kissed affectionately the clay-cold hand; his only regret afterwards being that he had not kissed her cheeks. And why such deep and enduring affection? Because the wife elicited it, and by constant care retained it. She impressed him with the preciousness of virtue. She elevated his thought and inspired him to write:
“For oh! how good, how beautiful, must be
The God that made so good a thing as thee.”
Macaulay describes the painful scene at the death of Mary, wife of William of Orange. The king’s agony was intense. Amid scalding tears he testified to the excellency of the departed Queen, saying to Bishop Burnet, “I was the happiest man on earth, and I am the most miserable. She had no fault--none; you knew her well but you could not know, nobody but myself could know, her goodness.” Not unworthy of notice is the homely advice given by an old lady to her newly-married daughter, “Never worry your husband. A man is like an egg, kept in hot water a little while he may boil soft, but keep him there too long and he hardens.”
IV. Be governed in all your relationships by true religion. Let the sound, safe, significant principles of godliness guide you. Let the love of Christ constrain you in all your household and family engagements. Do what you are called to do heartily as unto the Lord. Remember that there is One greater, better, wiser, and more loving and loveable than your earthly husband--One who claims and deserves all the affection of your heart, all the homage of your mind, all the service of your life. “Thy Maker is thy husband.” The Lord Jesus is the bridegroom of your soul. As a wife renounces old familiar scenes, customary engagements, and long-known associates for her husband, so you are asked to be ready to renounce all for Jesus. As a wife surrenders all her time, influence, and possessions to her husband, so you are asked to make a voluntary and joyful surrender of yourself and all your belongings to Christ. As a wife consents to share with her husband in all vicissitudes, in adversity as well as prosperity, so you are asked to follow the Lord whithersoever He may lead, through evil and through good report, counting it an honour to be partaker of His sufferings. As a good wife cultivates love for her husband so that every day augments the volume of her affection, so you are asked to foster and evince love for Christ. We have read in history how, when Edward I was wounded by a poisoned dagger, his wife Eleanor, from the deep love she bare her husband, sucked the poisoned wound, and so ventured her own life to save his. Such love you are asked to cultivate for Christ. If He be wounded by the poisonous tongues of the ungodly, by reproaches, blasphemies, and persecutions, do you learn to say, “Let the reproach of Christ fall upon me”--“Let me suffer rather than Jesus and His truth!” (J. H. Hitchens, D. D.)
That the Word of God be not blasphemed.
The highest motive to duty
Here the great law of the family is put on the highest Christian ground. If those who profess the gospel of Christ fail in any of these respects, it is more than possible that the blame will be thrown upon God’s Word (cf. 1 Timothy 6:1)
. If Christians profess to be influenced by a supernaturally strong and sacred motive, and then fail to do what lower and ordinary motives often succeed in effecting, the world charges the failure on the lofty motive itself, and Christ bears once again the sins of His people: He is crucified afresh and put to open shame. (H. R. Reynolds, D. D.)