Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she smiles at the future. She opens her mouth in wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. She looks well to the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and bless her; her husband also, and he praises her saying, “Many daughters have done nobly, but you excel them all.”
Proverbs 31:25-29
O happy home, where Thou art loved the dearest,
Thou loving Friend and Savior of our race,
And where among the guests there never cometh
One who can hold such high and honored place!
O happy home, whose little ones are given
Early to Thee, in humble faith and prayer,
To Thee, their Friend, Who from the heights of Heaven
Guides them, and guards with more than mother’s care!
O happy home, where each one serves Thee, lowly,
Whatever his appointed work may be,
Till every common task seems great and holy,
When it is done, O Lord, as unto Thee!
Karl Spitta
O Happy Home-1833
“You have set my heart at ease, my cousin, so far as you were yourself the object of its anxieties. What other trouble it feels can be cured by God alone.... I am delighted with Mrs. Bodham’s kindness in giving me the only picture of my mother that is to be found, I suppose, in all the world. I had rather possess it than the richest jewel in the British Crown, for I loved her with an affection that her death, fifty-two years since, has not in the least abated. I remember her too, young as I was when she died, well enough to know that it is a very exact resemblance of her, and as such it is to me invaluable. Everybody loved her, and, with an amiable character so impressed upon all her features, everybody was sure to do so.”
William Cowper~1790
In a Letter to Lady Hesketh
We sought where we might serve Thee most usefully, and were together returning to Africa; whitherward having come as far as Ostia, my mother departed this life. Much I omit, as hastening much. Receive my confessions and thanksgivings, O my God, for innumerable things whereof I am silent. But I will not omit whatsoever my soul would bring forth concerning that Thy handmaid, who brought me forth, both in the flesh, that I might be born to this temporal light, and in her heart, that I might be born to Light eternal. Not her gifts, but Thine in her, would I speak of; for neither did she make nor educate herself. Thou createdst her; nor did her father and mother know what a child should come from them. And it was the rod of Thy Christ, the discipline of Thine only Son, that educated her in Thy fear, to be in a Christian house, a good member of Thy Church....
Finally, her own husband, towards the very end of earthly life, did she gain unto Thee; nor had she to complain of those things in him now a Christian, which before he was a believer she had so meekly borne from him. She was also the servant of Thy servants; whosoever of them knew her, did in her much praise and honour and love Thee; for that, through the witness of the fruits of a holy conversation, they perceived Thy presence in her heart. For she had been the “wife of one man,” had “requited her parents, had governed her house” piously, “was well reported of for good works, had brought up children,” so often “travailing in birth of them,” as she saw them swerving from Thee. Lastly, of all of us Thy servants, O Lord (whom on occasion of Thy own gift Thou sufferst to speak), us, who before her sleeping in Thee lived united together, having received the grace of Thy baptism, did she so take care, as though she had been mother of us all; so served us as though she had been the daughter of us all.
Augustine 354-430
Confessions
