Letters to Persons Who Are Engaged in Domestic Service

by Catharine Esther Beecher

There are two things that make a station honourable; one is the power to do good, and the other is using this power in the right manner.

Why is the office of a king or queen the most honourable of any in the nation? Because it secures the most power to confer benefits and enjoyment on others? Why is the station of a president, a governor, or a judge so honourable? Because they have great power given them to use for the happiness of others. Why is the office of a minister of the gospel honourable? Because his education, character and office give him great powers to do good. Why are rich men considered more honourable than poor?

Because their money gives them power to increase the happiness of others. They can give employment to the poor, can give custom to the shopkeepers and tradesmen, can bestow money on charitable objects, can secure a superior education, and many other agreeable things that make it pleasant to others to associate with them. Why are persons of talent and learning honourable? Because their talents and knowledge give them power in various ways to promote their own interest and to do good to others.

The mere possession, then, of a power to do good, is what makes one station more honourable than another. But another thing that makes a station honourable, is the actual using of this power in doing good.

If kings and queens are selfish and wicked, and use their power to oppress their people, they are never as much honoured as when they use it to do good.

If presidents, governors, and judges use their power to do evil, they are not honoured like those who use it to do good. If a minister of the gospel uses his influence to do harm

rather than good, he is more despised than he is honoured. If rich people spend their wealth in selfish indulgences, or in harmful vices, they are not honoured as they would be, if they spent it for useful and benevolent purposes. If persons who have talents and learning, spend their time and influence to do evil, they are not honoured or respected as they would be, if they employed them to do good.

Now I think you clearly see, that the two things which make a station honourable are, the power to do good, and the use of this power in a proper manner. If, then, I can show that domestics have great power to do good given them, and that they really use this power in doing good, I shall prove that the station of a domestic is an honourable and respectable one. And if I can show that domestics have more power, and actually do more good, than many who think themselves above them, I shall prove, too, that they have the more honourable and respectable station. I will therefore point out the power of doing good which is given to domestics. In the first place, then, they do more than any other class of persons to sustain

that most important institution of God, the family state. How much benefit and comfort mankind receive through this institution, few of us can realize. To help you to do so, just imagine the state of things in this country, if all the homes in the land were broken up, and all classes of persons herded together in common, like flocks of animals.

In this case the father and husband would have no quiet home to go to for comfort, and the mother would have no house of her own where she could train her children. Every child, too, would be turned out into the community to take care of itself, with no parents to watch over it by day and night, no brothers and sisters to sleep and play with, no regular meal to call all the children together around their kind parents.