Now the first thing to be said for your comfort is, that you really have great trials to meet; trials that entitle you to pity and sympathy, while it is the fault of others more than your own, that you are in this very painful and difficult situation. You have been as cruelly treated as the Israelites were by Pharaoh, when he demanded bricks without furnishing the means to make them.
You are like a young, inexperienced lad, who is required to superintend all the complicated machinery of a manufactory, which he never was trained to understand, and on penalty of losing reputation, health, and all he values most.
Neither your parents, teachers, or husband have trained you for the place you fill, nor furnished you with the knowledge or assistance needed to enable you to meet all the complicated and untried duties of your lot. A young woman who has never had the care of a child, never done housework, never learned the numberless processes that are indispensable to keep domestic affairs in regular order, never done anything but attend to books, drawing, and music, at school, and visiting and company after she left school, such an one is as unprepared to take charge of a nursery, kitchen, and family establishment, as she is to take charge of a man-of-war. And the chief blame rests with those who placed her so unprepared in such trying circumstances. Therefore, you have a right to feel that a large part of these evils are more your misfortune than your fault, and that they entitle you to sympathy rather than blame.
The next word of comfort is, the assurance that you can do every one of your duties, and do them well, and the following is the method by which you can do it. In the first place, make up your mind that it never is your duty to do anything more than you can, or in any better manner than the best you can. And whenever you have done the best you can, you have done well, and it is all that man should require, and certainly all that your Heavenly Father does require.
The next thing is, for you to make out an inventory of all the things that need to be done, in your whole establishment. Then calculate what things you find you cannot do, and strike them off the list, as what are not among your duties. Of those that remain, select a certain number that you think you can do exactly as they need to be done, and among these be sure that you put the making of good bread. This every housekeeper can do, if she will only determine to do it.
Make a selection of certain things that you will persevere in having done as well as they can be done, and let these be only so many as you feel sure you can succeed in attempting. Then make up your mind that all the rest must go along as they do, until you get more time, strength, and experience, to increase the list of things that you determine shall always be well done.
By this course, you will have the comfort of feeling that in some respects you are as good a housekeeper as you can be, while there will be a cheering progress in gaining on all that portion of your affairs, that are left at loose ends. You will be able to measure a gradual advance, and be encouraged by success. Many housekeepers fail entirely, by expecting to do everything well at first, when neither their knowledge or strength is adequate, and so they fail everywhere, and finally give up in despair.
Are you not only a housekeeper, but a mother? Oh, sacred and beautiful name! how many cares and responsibilities are associated with it! And how many elevating and sublime anticipations and hopes are given to inspire, and to cheer! You are training young minds whose plastic texture will receive and retain every impression you make, who will imitate your feelings, tastes, habits, and opinions, and who will transmit what they receive from you to their children, to pass again to the next generation, and then to the next, until a whole nation will have received its character and destiny from your hands! No imperial queen ever stood in a more sublime and responsible position than you now occupy, in the eye of Him who reads the end from the beginning, and who is appointing all the trials and discipline of your lot, not for purposes which are visible to your limited ken, but in view of all the consequences that are to result from the character which you form, and are to transmit to your posterity!
Remember, then, that you have a Father in heaven, who sympathizes in all your cares, pities your griefs, makes allowances for your defects, and is endeavoring by trials, as well as by blessings, to fit you for the right fulfilment of your high and holy calling.