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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Letter to a Dissenting Minister s Wife [ The foJlowing Letter has been communicated to us as no unsuitable companion to the " Letter to a Young Dissenting Minister / ' Vol . VI . ( 181 n , p . 471 . Kd . ]
t ^^ i " L' ' - ^ m ^^^^ m ^ m ^ m THOUG H I have followed you in idea , my dearest daughter , almost from hour to hour since you left us , amidst the various scenes through which I pleased myself with supposing you to be passing , 1 have not thought it necessary , or even seasonable , to
trouble you with either my good wishes or mv advice ; because I was sure you would give ray affection full credit for the former ; and because I had no doubt of your conducting yourself , through the various circumstances attendant on vour change of character ,
with that modest nnd unaffected propriety , which would render the latter quite unnecessary , had I been qualified to offer it in this stage of your proceedings . But now that the
ceremonials attending your first introduction are over , and you are beginning to think of settling upon a plain domestic plan , will you allow me to pour forth some of the overflowings of a father ' s heart , which has often , of
late , engaged the head to meditate on your future duties and prospects ? On the qualities which a man of sense will most regard in the choice of a wife , you have read the judicious remarks of Dr . Aikin , * on the general duties of a wife you have availed yourself of the advice of Mr . Gisborne ,
and you have perused the strong and often coarse , though too often wellfounded , strictures of Mrs . Wollstonecraft . I need not , therefore , say any thing to you oil the general rights and obligations of husband and wife : you are neither of you , I trust , disposed
to be jealous of each other ' s rights , or grudging in the discharge of mutual obligations . You will not be disposed to exclaim with Mrs . Wollstonecrufr , " Is a wife to be an upper servant , to provide her husband ' s meals and take care of his lineu ? " No : not as an
upper servant j but as a companion and helper , to make his home comfortable and his meals pleasant , when he returns from acting the part of a fellow-servant , in the discharge of * Letters to a Son . Vol . I .
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those public or more private duties , by which he is to make the necessary provision for the common mainteliance . But to have done with generals : it was my object to point out some of
those particular duties which may be required from the wife of a minister , connected with such a congregation as that at . Such a person may render herself a help-meet for her husband in various respects .
In order to form a full idea of-all the ways in which she may be so , it is necessary that she carefully consider the nature of his profession , and the ends of it . No less than the religious and moral improvement of all his hearers , in order to their usefulness here , and their happiness hereafter .
To answer such important purposes he is not to be a mere lecturer , to make his weekly appearance before them with a set discourse ; he is to be , their teacher , their exemplar , their friend and counsellor ; the mediator between his richer and poorer hearers , the director of the charities of the
former , and the consoler of the latter in distress ; the institutor and manager of useful plans for religious education of the young , and the religious information of persons of all ages ; in short , the promoter of religious truth and practice , both by precept and example .
In most of these respects he may be materially assisted by his wife : in many she may , with great advantage , be his proxy . If she be not fitted or disposed to
help him in any of them , he is greatly to be pitied , and , perhaps , even in some degree to be blamed : it is , at least , a sign that he has made a very injudicious choice . The conduct of a minister ' s wife may often benefit or
mislead his nock , almost as much as his own . I have somewhere read , that in the Protestant churches of Hungary , a minister has been degraded " whose wife has indulged herself in amusements which bespeak the gaiety of a mere lover of the world , rather than the gravity of a Christian matron : "
a severity said to be grounded on the supposition , '•* that a wife having promised obedience to her husband , can do nothing but what he either directs or approves . " It might have been grounded on the apostolic precept , that the deaconesses " must be grave ,
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£ , etter to a Dissenting Minister ' s Wife . 5 Q ;
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vol . xn . 4 u
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1817, page 597, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2469/page/25/
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