Transcribed from the 1880 Macmillan and Co. edition by DavidPrice,
BY
CHARLES KINGSLEY
London:
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1880.
| PAGE |
Woman’s Work in a Country Parish | |
The Science of Health | |
The Two Breaths | |
Thrift | |
Nausicaa in London; or, the Lower Education of Women | |
The Air-Mothers | |
The Tree of Knowledge | |
Great Cities and their Influence for Good and Evil | |
Heroism | |
The Massacre of the Innocents | |
“A mad world, my masters.” |
I have been asked to speak a fewwords to you on a lady’s work in a country parish. Ishall confine myself rather to principles than to details; andthe first principle which I would impress on you is, that we mustall be just before we are generous. I must, indeed, speakplainly on this point. A woman’s first duties are toher own family, her own servants. Be not deceived: ifanyone cannot rule her own household, she cannot rule the Churchof God. If anyone cannot sympathise with the servants withwhom she is in contact all day long, she will not reallysympathise with the poor whom she sees once a week. I knowthe temptation not to believe this is very great. It seemsso much easier to women to do something for the poor, than fortheir own ladies’ maids, and house-maids, and cooks. And why? Because they can treat the poor as things:but they must treat their servants as persons. Alady can go into a poor cottage, lay down the law to theinhabitants, reprove them for sins to which she has never beentempted; tell them how to set things right, which, if she had thedoing of them, I fear she would do even more confusedly andslovenly than they. She can give them a tract, as she mighta pill; and t