“Jennie, what do you think I told Ben Brown?”
    Called the farmer from the well;
  And a flush crept up to his bronzed brow,
    And his eye half bashfully fell;
  “It was this,” he said, and coming near,
    He smiled, and stooping down,
  Kissed her cheek—­“’twas this, that you were the best
    And dearest wife in town!”

  The farmer went back to the field, and the wife,
      In a smiling and absent way,
  Sang snatches of tender little songs
      She’d not sung for many a day. 
  And the pain in her head was gone, and the clothes
      Were white as foam of the sea;
  Her bread was light, and her butter was sweet,
      And golden as it could be.

  “Just think,” the children all called in a breath,
      “Tom Wood has run off to sea! 
  He wouldn’t, I know, if he only had
      As happy a home as we.” 
  The night came down, and the good wife smiled
  To herself, as she softly said,
  “’Tis sweet to labor for those we love—­
      ’Tis not strange that maids will wed!”

There is a glory in motherhood which robes woman in beauty, and fills the home with the light of heaven.  The mother, busy with her cares, and attending to the wants of her children, is honored wherever Christ is loved.

Now, because the world links woman’s work and mission together, the world is full of pictures of the mother and the child.  To a true-hearted man, it is almost impossible to find any picture to which his nature turns with fonder delight than to that of a mother with a child sleeping on the breast, full of sweet trust and enjoying a dreamless repose, or being ministered to in his nude state in the morning bath.  The spiritual covers the common with a halo of glory, and robes woman in the light of love.

The same is true of the housewife.  In the daily routine of duty, which is essential to the comfort and bliss of home life, there is nothing very attractive in the ordinary occupations of the home.  Let a woman attempt the task with no outlook, with no hope.  Let her do it for so much money, and nothing more, and she becomes morose, discontented, sad and cheerless.  Let her do this for love.  Let her feel that she is contributing to some one’s joy, or that she is to use the money earned for some worthy purpose, and at once the loftiness of her purpose sanctifies her deed, and renders that which would have been unbecoming, if done without a motive, right and noble when performed under the pressure of a great and noble aspiration, for “’tis sweet to labor for those we love.”