Assured Sympathy
If, under all this wear and tear of life, Martha makes an impatient rush upon the library or drawing room, be patient, be lenient. Oh, woman, though I may fail to stir up an appreciation in the souls of others in regard to your household toils let me assure you, from the kindliness with which Jesus Christ met Martha, that he appreciates all your work from garret to cellar; and that the God of Deborah, and Hannah, and Abigail and Grandmother Lois, and Elizabeth Fry, and Hannah More is the God of the housekeeper.
Jesus was never married that he might be the especial friend and confidante of a whole world of troubled womanhood. I blunder; Christ was married. The Bible says that the Church is the Lamb’s wife, and that makes me know that all Christian women have a right to go to Christ and tell Him of their annoyances and troubles, since by His oath of conjugal fidelity He is sworn to sympathize. George Herbert, the Christian poet, wrote two or three verses on this subject:
“The servant by this clause
Makes drudgery divine;
Who sweeps a room, as for Thy laws,
Makes this and the action fine.”
Again, there is the trial of