The Divine Friend

On a table of free books I found this collection of essays from 1892, and flipping to the following section, knew I had to take it home.

Many of you are women at the head of households.  Every morning you plan for the day.  The culinary department of the household is your dominion.  You decide all questions of diet.  All the sanitary regulations of your house are under your supervision. To regulate the food, and the apparel, and the habits, and to decide the thousand questions of home life, are a tax upon brain and nerve and general health absolutely appalling, if there be no divine alleviation.

It does not help you much to be told that Elizabeth Fry did wonderful things amid the criminals at Newgate.  It does not help much to be told that Mrs. Judson was very brave among the Bornesian cannibals.  It does not help you much to be told that Florence Nightingale was very kind to the wounded in the Crimea.  It would be better to tell you that the divine friend of Mary and Martha is your friend, and that He sees all the annoyances and disappointments,  and the abrasions and exasperations of an ordinary housekeeper from morn till night, and from the first day of the year to the last day of the year, and that at your call He is ready with help and reinforcement.

Trumpet Blasts by T. DeWitt Talmage