and to learn how to manage their little faults, and bear with their follies.
She learns the proper modes of cooking food, of arranging a house, of taking care of furniture, and of doing all the various kinds of work which in future life she must either do herself, or else direct others to do.
She learns various modes of economizing, and of systematizing work. She acquires a habit of taking care of others, and of providing for their comforts and wants, so as to qualify her for these benevolent services when she has a family of her own.
She also has an employment that is healthful, because it demands a great deal of exercise, most of it within doors, and not in any way injurious. She also has regular daily business, and is obliged to be industrious—and a habit of industry is one of the truest sources of contentment and happiness.
Besides this, a domestic is brought into contact with a great variety of tempers, and learns to accommodate, and to govern her temper and tongue as she never could do without this kind of trial.
A domestic, too, is in a situation in which she is, all the time, called on to give up her own ease and time to promote the comfort of others, and this tends to make the duty of self-denying benevolence, more easy to learn. This is the great duty which Jesus Christ came to teach us by his precepts and example, and the more we can imitate him in this, the more we shall be prepared to serve and enjoy him in that world where he has gone, and where he invites us to prepare ourselves to come, by imitating him.
It thus appears that if a domestic is ever to be married, she is going through exactly the best training possible, to prepare her to conform her will and wishes to those of her husband, to train up her children well, and to become a neat, industrious and economical housekeeper. If she is not to be married, she is forming a character that is best calculated to raise up around her, in the families where she labours, sincere and valuable friends, who will make her old age easy and respectable. And whatever may be her future earthly lot, she is under the best kind of training to make
her a submissive, benevolent and self denying Christian, and thus to fit her for her eternal home.
I will now show some of the reasons why the employment of a sempstress, a shop girl, and a factory girl are inferior in advantages and respectability to that of a domestic.
In all of these employments, a young woman has only one thing to do, from morning to night, and the kind of work she does in no way tends to improve her character, or to prepare her for domestic life. She is not constantly doing various kinds of work, under the direction of another, thus learning patience, submission, diligence and faithfulness. She is not learning how to economize, or keep house, or take care of children. She is not acquiring a habit of ministering to the wants and comforts of others. In most cases she has a sedentary employment, that keeps her from the exercise and fresh air, so needful to good health. She is thrown out of the circle of family friendships, and the safe asylum of domestic life, and is often brought into contact with selfish and vicious persons, whose influence tends to injure