American Woman's Home: Or, Principles of Domestic Science; / Being a Guide to the Formation and Maintenance of Economical, Healthful, Beautiful, and Christian Homes

by Catharine Esther Beecher; Harriet Beecher Stowe

A front and a back entrance may be in the basement, which, can be used for family stores, each family having one room. A general laundry with drying closets could be provided in the attic, and lighted from the roof.

Such a building, four stories high, would accommodate sixteen families of four members, or eight larger families, and provide light, warmth, ventilation, and more comforts and conveniences than are usually found in most city houses built for only one family. Here young married persons with frugal and benevolent tastes could commence housekeeping in a style of comfort and good taste rarely excelled in mansions of the rich. The spaces usually occupied by stairs, entries, closets, etc., would on this plan be thrown into fine large airy rooms, with every convenience close at hand.

In one of our large cities is to be found a Christian lady who inherited a handsome establishment with means to support it in the style common to the rich. In the spirit of Christ she "sold all that she had, and gave to the poor," by establishing a Home for Incurables, and making her home with them, giving her time and wealth to promoting their temporal comfort and spiritual welfare. Was this doing more than her duty—more than the example and teachings of Christ require?

Suppose several ladies of similar views and character in one city, having only moderate wealth, and leisure, unite to erect such a building as the one described, in a light and healthful part of the city of New York, and then should take up their residence in it, and from the vast accumulation of misery and sin at hand on every side, should select the orphans, the aged, the sick, and the sinful, and spend time and money for their temporal and spiritual elevation; would they do more than the example and teachings of Christ enjoin? Or would their enjoyment, even in this life, be diminished by exchanging a routine chiefly of personal gratification for such self-denying ministries? It was "for the joy that was set before Him" through the everlasting ages that our Lord "endured the cross," and it is to the same supernal glories that he invites his followers, and by the same path he trod.

Here it probably will be said that all rich women can not do what is here suggested, owing to multitudinous claims, or to incapacity of mind or body for carrying out such an attempt. It will also be said that there are many other ways for practicing self-denial besides selling our homes and taking a humbler style of living. This is all true. But we are told that there are "greatest" and "least" in that kingdom of heaven where the chief happiness is in living to serve others, and not for self. Those who can not change their expensive style of living, and are obliged to spend most of their thoughts and wealth on self and those who are a part of self, will be among the least and lowest in happiness and honor, while those who take the low places on earth to raise others will be the happiest and most honored in the kingdom of heaven.

There are many residences in our large cities where women claiming to be Christ's followers live in almost solitary grandeur till the warm season, and then shut them up to spend their time at watering-places or country resorts. The property invested in such city establishments, and the income required to keep them up, would secure "Christian homes" to many suffering, neglected, homeless children of Christ, who are living in impure air, with all the debasing influences found in city tenement-houses. Meantime, the owners of this wealth are suffering in mind and body for want of some grand and noble object in life. If such could not personally live in such an establishment as is here described, by self-denying arrangements and combination with others they could provide and superintend one.

Our minds are created in the image of our Father in heaven, and capable of being made happy, as his is, by the outpouring of blessings on others. And when we are invited by our divine Lord to take his yoke and bear his burden, it is for our own highest happiness as well as for the good of others. And whoever truly obeys finds the yoke easy and the burden light, and that they bring rest to the soul. But those who shrink from the true good, to live a life of self-indulgent ease, will surely find that mere earthly enjoyments pall on the taste, that they perish in the using, that they never satisfy the cravings of a soul created for a higher sphere and nobler mission.

The Bible represents that there is an emergency-a great conflict in the world unseen-and that we on earth, who are Christ's people, are to take a part in this conflict and in the "fellowship of his sufferings," to redeem his children from the slavery of sin and eternal death; and there is the same call to labor and sacrifice now as there was when he commanded, "Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature."

But is not the larger part of the church—especially those who have wealth—practically living on no higher principles than the pious Jews and virtuous heathen? Are they not living just as if there were no great emergency, no terrible risks and danger to their fellow-men in the life to, come? Are they not living just as if all men were safe after they leave this world, and all we need to aim at is to make ourselves and others virtuous and happy in this life, without disturbing anxiety about the life to come? And is the training of most Christian families diverse from that of pious Jews, in reference to the dangers of our fellow-men in the future state, and the consequent duty of labor and sacrifice in order to extend the true religion all over the earth?

One mode of avoiding self-denial in style of living is by the plea that, if all rich Christiana gave up the expensive establishments common to this class and adopted such economies as are here suggested, it would tend to lower civilization and take away support from those living by the fine arts. But while the world is rushing on to such profuse expenditure, will not all these elegancies and refinements be abundantly supported, and is there as much danger in this direction as there is of avoiding the self-denying example of Christ and his early followers? They gave up all they had, and "were scattered abroad, preaching the word;" and was there any reason existing then for self-denying labor that does not exist now? There are more idolaters and more sinful men now, in actual numbers, than there were then; while teaching them the way of eternal life does not now, as it did then, involve the "loss of all things" and "deaths often."