Saturday, July 14, 2018

Old Paths In Portrait

“And as Christ labored for His church, not only during His abode upon earth, but made provision for its welfare when He departed from our world, in like manner should the husband take care of his wife. I never could understand the propriety of that custom, which is but too common, of men’s providing by their wills so much better for the children than they do for the mother. Does this look like a supreme love? Every man who raises a woman to the rank of his wife should take care, however inferior she might have been in circumstances before their marriage, to leave her in the situation into which he brought her. It is indeed most cruel to leave her to be deprived at once, not only of her dearest earthly friend, but of her usual means of comfortable subsistence.”

A practical affection to a wife extends, however, to everything: it should manifest itself in the most delicate attention to her comfort and her feelings; in consulting her tastes; in concealing her failings, in never doing anything to degrade her, but everything to exalt her before her children and servants; in acknowledging her excellencies and commending her efforts to please him; in meeting and even in anticipating all her reasonable requests; in short, in doing all that ingenuity can invent for her substantial happiness and general comfort.”

-John Angell James  English Minister and Author  1785-1859


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