As Kingsley justly asks: "If vanity, profligacy, pride, and idleness be not moral vices, what are?" What is more common than to find pride and vanity leading our women to idleness, and that extravagance and craving after gaiety which are the feminine form of profligacy? And Kingsley goes on to show that beneath these vices, and perhaps the cause of them all, lies another and deeper vice—godlessness, atheism.
"I do not," continues he, "mean merely the want of religion, doctrinal unbelief. I mean want of belief in duty, in responsibility. Want of belief that there is a living God governing the universe, who has set us our work, and will judge us according to our work."
Why are our noble gifts given to us; such gifts as these—
"The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill."
Is it that we may become "tolerably harmless dolls?" How shall we answer for having used our endurance only so much as may make us wait with common patience for next month's number of Belgravia; our foresight in choosing a pattern for a mantle which shall be fashionable enough to be worn next autumn; our skill in crochet-work, and our strength in skating on the outside edge.
No wonder we do not value the Sunday rest. We know that heavenly mansions are being prepared for us to enjoy the heavenly rest in, and that we must prepare ourselves for these mansions, or we shall not be permitted to enter them. Then let us take pains to prepare our earthly houses for the right use of the day of rest, and be able to go up to the house of the Lord with the multitude that keep holy-day.
We should so put our houses in order on Saturday that we may really be able to rest on Sunday. Some works of necessity must be done, such as the dinner prepared; but by dining early, and doing as much as possible on the previous day towards its preparation, the labour may be reduced to a minimum.
There will be no needlework, no cleaning or dusting, no marketing to be done on Sunday. Pies and tarts should have been made on Saturday, a double quantity of potatoes and other vegetables prepared, and a general foresight used.
Sunday is a good day for sending out a large joint to be baked, and a pudding also; indeed, this seems the opportunity for the national roast beef and plumpudding dinner. So that, in fact, beyond laying the cloth and removing the things used at meals, there is absolutely no work to be done beyond the five minutes' daily occupation of each person in making his or her own bed, as the re-arrangement of the used dinner things may be left till the following morning. The table is cleared as if by magic, if every child is told to put in its place two things, or three things, according to the number of things used and the number of children to put them back. Each person replaces his or her own chair, and the Sunday work is over. Life is not so hard to us as it was to the country squire's wife half a century ago, who always gave her servants physic on a Sunday because it was no loss of time. To us the Sunday is very helpful in another way: it keeps us from living too fast; without this wholesome stop we might drive ourselves on to frenzy.