There is no more dangerous mode of heating a room than by a gas-stove. There is inevitably more or less leakage of the gas which it is unhealthful to breathe. And proper ventilation is scarcely ever secured by those who use such stoves. The same fatal elements of imperfect ventilation with its attendant horrors of disease, extravagant wastefulness of material, of fuel, of labor, of time, and of destruction to the apparatus itself, seem concomitants of all ordinary stoves and cooking arrangements of the present day, unless those who use them are constant and unremitting in the exercise of intelligent watchfulness, guarding against these evils. And in view of the almost inevitable stupidity and carelessness of servants, who generally have charge of such things, and the frequent thoughtlessness even of intelligent women who manage their own kitchens, the writer believes she is doing a public service by offering her own experience as a guide to simpler, cheaper, and more wholesome means of living and preparing the family food.
XXXVII.
CARE OF THE HOMELESS, THE HELPLESS, AND THE VICIOUS.
In considering the duties of the Christian family in regard to the helpless and vicious classes, some recently developed facts need to be considered. We have stated that the great end for which, the family was instituted is the training to virtue and happiness of our whole race, as the children of our Heavenly Father, and this with chief reference to their eternal existence after death. In the teachings of our Lord we find that it is for sinners—for the lost and wandering sheep, that he is most tenderly concerned. It is not those who by careful training and happy temperaments have escaped the dangers of life that God and good angels most anxiously watch. "For there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine that went not astray."
The hardest work of all is to restore a guilty, selfish, hardened spirit to honor, truth, and purity; and this is the divine labor to which the pitying Saviour calls all his true followers; to lift up the fallen, to sustain the weak, to protect the tempted, to bind up the broken-hearted, and especially to rescue the sinful. This is the peculiar privilege of woman in the sacred retreat of a "Christian home." And it is for such self-denying ministries that she is to train all who are under her care and influence, both by her teaching and by her example.
In connection with these distinctive principles of Christ for which the family state was instituted, let the following facts be considered. The Massachusetts Board of State Charities, consisting of some of the most benevolent and intelligent gentlemen of that State, in pursuance of their official duty visited all the State institutions, and held twenty-five meetings during the year 1867-8. By these visits and consequent discussions they arrived at certain conclusions, which may be briefly condensed as follows.
No state or nation excels Massachusetts in a wise and generous care of the helpless, poor, and vicious. The agents employed for this end are frugal, industrious, intelligent, and benevolent men and women, with high moral principles. The pauper and criminal classes requiring to be cared for by Massachusetts are less in proportion to the whole number of inhabitants than in any other state or nation. Yet, admirable as are these comparative results, there is room for improvement in a most important particular. The report of the Board urges that the present mode of collecting special classes in great establishments, though it may be the best in a choice of evils, is not the best method for the physical, social, and moral improvement of those classes; as it involves many unfortunate influences (which are stated at large:) and the report suggests that a better way would be to scatter these unfortunates from temporary receiving asylums into families of Christian people all over the State.
It is suggested in view of the above, that collecting fallen women into one large community is not the best way to create a pure moral atmosphere; and that gathering one or two hundred children in one establishment is not so good for them as to give each child a home in some loving Christian family. So of the aged and the sick, the blessings of a quiet home, and the tender, patient nursing of true Christian love, must be sought in a Christian family; not in a great asylum.
In view of these important facts and suggestions, it may be inquired, if the great end and aim of the family state is to train the inmates to self-denying love and labor for the weak, the suffering, and the sinful, how can it be done where there are no young children, no aged persons, no invalids, and no sinful ones for whom such sacrifices are to be made?
Why are orphan children thrown upon the world, why are the aged held in a useless, suffering life, except that they may aid in cultivating tender love and labor for the helpless, and reverence for the hoary head? And yet, how few children are trained thus to regard the orphan, the aged, the helpless, and the vicious around them!