kinds of work.  As woman’s faith blesses as well as saves her; it is essential that her work be linked in some way to the exercise of faith, and to the unfolding of love.  For the character of the work exerts an influence upon woman’s body as well as upon her soul.  If you will contrast the looks of a happy housewife or domestic with the looks of a majority of the faces that are seen in factories, the truth of the position taken will be abundantly sustained.  It matters not so much where the roots of woman’s life-work grow, if up through it all, and above it all, the vine may twine its tendril, and send forth its flower, and yield its fruit.  For this cause the love of Christ and the hopes of a Christian life seem so essential to her growth and development, that it is almost impossible to write of a happy, contented woman, without describing a woman whose faith in Jesus has regenerated and disinthralled her.  Love is the prime requisite to successful endeavor on a woman’s part to be her husband’s true helpmeet; and so, in discharging the duties incident to a life of toil, woman must be soothed and sustained in her tasks by the joys of a Christian life.  Hence the ruin wrought in shops and factories, in stores, and homes where Christ is cast out, and where the bliss of high and holy living is denied.

Woman’s mission is to be inferred from a consideration of the wants of man.  Created to be a helpmeet for man, it is essential, if we would determine her mission, that we ascertain for what purpose man needs her influence.

God declared, “It is not good for man to be alone,” and woman was brought to him as a companion, to charm his life, to prolong it by sharing it with him.  Her vocation, by birth, is a vocation of love.  To be his helpmeet, not his rival; not to increase, but to lighten, or to support him, under his cares; to recognize him as the immediate object of her existence, instead of fancying that he was formed to wait on her; this is the end for which God has called her into being.  As has been said, “This representation may not satisfy the ambition of some, who do but degrade themselves by aspiring to occupy a position for which they are neither intended by God nor qualified by nature,—­even as men and angels fell when they sought to become as gods,—­but in reality it tends to woman’s elevation; and, as the whole history of Christianity doth show, where its truth is most recognized and relied upon, there woman is happiest and greatest.”

The word “mission,” as applied to woman, refers to the purpose for which she was created and brought to man.  In considering her mission, we are safe in avowing that woman found her mission, 1.  At home.  Her mission is in the home.  Her training must fit her for the home, whether she serves as a wife or as a domestic.  Her life is a success when she makes home a pleasure and a joy to those to whom the home properly belongs.  It is for this reason that there is deep concern on the part of many