Obedience is the grand duty which includes almost every other, in the relation between masters and mistresses, and servants. Disobedience to lawful commands in a servant is dishonesty. Act therefore with submission to the will and judgment of your superiors. If they require things to be done, that are contrary to the laws of God or man, you may with meekness decline them. If they constantly require the performance of what is beyond the reasonable limit of your strength, your ability, or your time, shew your obedience and respect, by explaining your reasons, when you signify your intention to leave. Whatever personal inconvenience you may feel, do not slander your employers, either abroad or at home, respecting it, but apply to them for its removal. Always be contented and cheerful in your service, or respectfully retire from it. It is very unworthy to behave improperly, or to watch an opportunity to give warning, merely because you hope to gain higher wages in the next place. Rather respectfully ask for advance, and if you are a good servant, and your wish is not unreasonable, it will be granted. Never suffer yourself to leave a family, without leaving your best wishes for the welfare of those whom you have served.
It is a more serious thing to leave a good situation than many are aware of. You may never obtain such another place, all things considered; and may be long unsettled. “A rolling stone gathers no moss.” A servant that is not stationary seldom obtains friends that are able and willing to assist her. You now know all the inconveniences that attend your present situation, but you cannot know whether much greater may not be found in the next you obtain. Most situations have their advantages and disadvantages. Calculate, as far as you can, upon both, as they are found in the place where you now are. Higher wages for another service is no proof that it would be a better one, all things considered.
Nothing is so comfortable and creditable to all parties, as when a servant lives many years in the same family. Such servants never want a real friend. Though you may perhaps obtain a new service by a three months’ character, you will be respected if you have lived three years in your situation, but still more, if you have lived seven.
The great master principle of all faithful service is an earnest desire and endeavor to act according to the will of God. The reason why servants as well as others, are so defective and partial in the discharge of their duties, and therefore are so often uncomfortable and distressed, is, that they are not influenced as they ought to be, by this principle. Those, who think of their need of God’s help, and love him with their hearts, and minds, and strength, he will love and honor. “I love them that love me,” saith the Almighty. “They that honor me, I will honor; and those who despise me, shall be lightly esteemed.”
The celebrated Dean Swift, of facetious memory, who was a man of great genius and talent, and had an extensive knowledge of the world, in his burlesque Advice to Servants, by holding up their faults and vices as laudable examples for imitation, teaches them, in one continued vein of sarcastic irony, what they ought not to do;—we therefore transcribe a considerable portion thereof, by way of negative advice.—Good servants will applaud this artifice, and bad ones will feel its force.
“When your master or lady calls a servant by name, if the servant be not in the way, none of you are to answer, for then there will be no end of your drudgery: and masters themselves allow, that if a servant comes when he is called, it is sufficient.
“When you have done a fault, be always pert and insolent, and behave yourself as if you were the injured person; this will immediately put your master or lady off their mettle.
“If you see your master wronged by any of your fellow-servants, be sure to conceal it, for fear of being called a tell-tale: however, there is one exception in case of a favourite servant, who is justly hated by the whole family; and you are bound in prudence to lay all the faults you can upon the favourite.
“The cook, the butler, the groom, the market-man, and every other servant who is concerned in the expenses of the family, should act as if his master’s whole estate ought to be applied to that servant’s particular business. For instance, if the cook computes his master’s estate to be a thousand pounds a year, she reasonably concludes that a thousand pounds a year will afford meat enough, and therefore, he need not be sparing; the butler makes the same judgment, so may the groom and the coachman; and thus every branch of expense will be filled to your master’s honour.