The Minister's Wife, Home, and Family

In view of her high responsibilities, what sort of woman should a minister's wife strive to be? Let us hear an answer from a successful min­ister's wife, Mrs. E. O. Thompson, who sub­mitted a paper on this very subject. She writes:

As to what a minister's wife ought to be, I should say first of all, a woman, every whit a woman, a woman with all the graces of heart, simplicity of demeanor, and earnestness of life that it takes to make a woman. She must cultivate and exemplify to the world in voluntary acts of devotion that womanliness in which the heart of Christ finds its supremest earthly expression. Abrupt manners, a raspy voice, and careless habits discredit any woman, and the display of them by a minister's wife is positively a calamity, because her promi­nence exhibits the value of culture and refinement, and her position requires the highest personal at­tainments. Peevishness and narrow-mindedness are inconsistent with our ideal of womanhood in any sphere, and in a minister's wife they are unbear­able, because her example wields a mighty influ­ence, and her power for good demands breadth of vision and hopeful courage in meeting the trials and petty annoyances of life. So by all means let the minister's wife cultivate and exemplify all the womanly graces and attractiveness of which she is capable.

Besides being a woman of gentle habits and gra­cious courtesy, the minister's wife should be an ideal companion for the minister, and to do this she must be his compeer physically, intellectually, and spir­itually. Physically, woman is weaker than man, but this only argues for the care of the bodily temple so that it may be as efficient for a woman's work as man's is for his work. Life means joy, vigor, and freedom from unnecessary pain; and upon the soundness of health and physical fitness of the wife depends much of the minister's success. But not only must a minister's wife strive to be well, but it is her duty to keep herself as attractive and lovable as she was before marriage. In fact, it is well not only to abound in this grace, but to grow in it also. The minister soon learns that it is much easier to secure a good pastorate than to maintain a good one, and just as surely should the minister's wife realize that if personal attractiveness aided in awaken­ing love, it will do just as much, if not more, in increasing love. Many a man's admiration for his wife has been lost by unkempt hair and uncared-for hands, and his devotion killed by ill-fitting dresses and soiled apparel. Costly material is not required, but a little ingenuity and a reasonable amount of care will work wonders, and ensure the personal attractiveness necessary for perfect happi­ness and extensive usefulness.

But companionship does not rest alone on per­sonal charms, but must be sustained by mental ac­tivity and intellectual comradeship. Once upon a time in the far bygone days, men thought that because women were the weaker vessel, they were also the smaller. In a more recent time they have realized that a fragile china bowl may hold as much as a heavy iron pot. Today they not only acknowl­edge the possibility, but demand the actuality. There is no reason why a minister's wife should not be his intellectual equal, for educational opportuni­ties are as great for her as for him, and now special schools are built to train preachers' wives as well as aspirants for the position.

But it takes more than personal attractiveness and intellectual equality to produce perfect com­radeship. There must be a mating of the spiritual lives. The hearts of the minister and his wife, strangely drawn together, must quicken to the an­swering love of Jesus Christ, must dwell continually in His presence and trust without reserve in His promise, "Lo, I am with you alway."—The Highest Office, pp. 278-281.

Her Chief Task

That sets forth as well as it can be done what sort of woman a minister's wife is to be. Now with such qualifications for her place and her work, just what is her work to be? What is her chief task?

There may be those whose opinions on this point will differ from mine. I can only give my own. And that is that the chief task of the min­ister's wife is that of a homemaker and a home-keeper.

I do not mean by this that she should be chained within the walls of her house. I do mean, nevertheless, that she should consider it her chief duty, and should be given the right, and afforded the opportunity, of making the home a truly Christian home for herself, her husband, and their children. There is much talk about "the sacred desk" in the language of the minister. The home should be no less a holy place, no less a place of power, no less a symbol of all that is good and right. There is no truer holy of holies than a Christian home. . . . And there is no more deplorable failure than spoil­ing such a home. It is divine counsel, given by inspiration, that declares, "I will . . . that the younger women marry, . . . guide the house." To be the presiding genius of such a holy of holies is to be called to a high destiny, which should not be forsaken for anything else. To provide such a place of rest, of peace, of love, of power, for a man of God, is to do a higher work than that which any place of fussy impor­tance outside the home can possibly provide. A weary minister who has the lofty privilege of having such a home and such a homemaker, is wonderfully blessed, and he will turn to it again and again as the source of much of his power. Charles Hanson Towne has expressed much of the inner yearning of every true man in his verses "At Nightfall:"

I need so much the quiet of your love,

After the day's loud strife; I need your calm all other things above,

After the stress of life.

I crave the haven that in your dear heart lies,

After all toil is done; I need the starshine of your heavenly eyes,

After the day's great sun.

Many a minister's wife is indeed a "help­meet" for the husband whom God has given her. That was God's purpose when He gave Eve to Adam. When husband and wife are truly one in Christ, God's purposes are most wonder­fully realized. In a personal letter to a friend, a Christian man expresses this truth with rare discernment. He refers to "the lovely wife God gave you, for I know how much her love and fel­lowship have meant to you." And then he adds: "A man can carry along under anything, almost, if his heart is at peace. A wife touches a man's life where there is absolutely no protec­tive tissue over his heart, and when that touch is joy and peace, all is well. I am so thankful it is so with you and with me."

And that is supremely true. A man can bear up under almost all the outrageous blows of circumstance if he possesses a haven of rest into which he can go, and a sympathetic, under­standing heart that is united to his. Homemak-ing is the chief crown of privilege and glory for the minister's wife.

The Reign of Love in the Minister's Home

And may I add, Let love reign there always. Do not be ashamed to cultivate all the dear, sweet, tender things that mean so much to two hearts which have become one. There is much reason why love should grow deeper and ever deeper as the years of married life unfold. Stan­ton A. Coblentz has expressed in his verses, "After Marriage," what should be felt and said by many a man of God:

Not that I loved you less, when long ago

We roamed the moon-entangled woods of May,

And, arm in arm, looked down the clear, sweet way

We vowed to walk in love's perennial glow,

But then whole golden worlds I could not know

Were locked within you—and what voice could say

How years would open radiant halls, which lay

In light and kindness whence all blessings flow?

Yet with the waning seasons I have seen

A beauty even your lovelit girlish eyes

Could not reveal; and, though our spring be past,

I smile beneath the summer's copious green,

Finding a rarer flame in noonday skies

Than the star-haunted trysting meadows cast.

Duties Outside the Home

But there are, of course, duties for the min­ister's wife outside the home. She is to help her husband in his work. Nothing that is of inter­est to him, is lacking in interest for her. She is a member of the church. As the minister's wife she is deeply interested in alt the activities of the church. She wants her husband to make a success of his work. She will help him to do so.

She will not, it is hoped, write his sermons for him. She will not instruct him in their delivery. She will not make his visits for him, or do his work for him, or get in his way while he is do­ing it. But she will help, and what a help she can be if she is wise and discreet!

The delicate touch of a wise minister's wife, and her intuitional analysis of difficult situa­tions, and her friendly, unselfish, understand­ing counsel, very, very often result in covering a multitude of ministerial sins. Again and again she will save the preacher both from the blun­ders of others and from his own folly. And in the dark rooms of our own hearts we all know how bent we are on blundering. If it had not been for the gracious, chastening, mellowing, restraining, inspiring, and usually silent influence of a good wife, some of us long ago would have blundered ourselves into real disaster.

But aside from this important work of coun­seling her husband, and being a silent partner in his achievements, a minister's wife will have her own definite work. This will be her own because it will grow out of her peculiar posi­tion, her semiofficial connection with the min­istry. It will, consequently, be such a work as can be done by no other in the church.

Keep Out of Church Office

But this must not be done professionally. Above everything she must not be professional. A woman who makes "pastor's-wifing" a profes­sion is of all persons most disagreeable. Nor must she be domineering. Jeff D. Ray, in his "The Highest Office," puts it well when he writes on this subject:

She must lead, but not boss, and her leadership must be from the rear and not from the front. She must know, and if she does not know, she must learn, how to enlist and how to encourage others. The wisest woman I ever knew always maintained that the pastor's wife should never be the president of the woman's society. Nobody ever thought of her as a leader in any movement. She never held office nor wore any badge of leadership, but she was the dominant spirit among the women in every church where her husband was pastor. She gained as­cendancy by following two maxims—first, Keep yourself out of sight, and-second, Let all your plans be unselfish. When the women in a church discover that the plans of the pastor's wife point toward the parsonage or any other personal or selfish end, then and there she drops her scepter of power and can never pick it up. Blessings on the pastor's wife who is qualified for leadership, knows how to lead from the rear, and is willing to lead for the glory of Christ. I bare my head in her saintly presence. The other kind give me neurasthenia, which being in­terpreted is nervous prostration.—Pages 286, 287.

Long ago I came to the conclusion that it was the part of wisdom for a minister's wife to hold no official post in the church. She gives up her unique position, or, at least, neutralizes her influence, when she enters the ranks of other church women and becomes their competitor for church office. She may have excellent qualifica­tions for senior deaconess, or Missionary Volun­teer leader, or missionary society secretary, or Sabbath school superintendent, or chorister, or organist, or leader of the Dorcas Society, or any other office. But when she accepts such an office, she is in politics, and her sisters, some of whom would like to have the office she fills, will find ways of letting her know that she is in politics.

I do not mean by this that she should not do the work of any of these offices. She may play for her husband's meetings, she may sing in the choir, she may teach a Sabbath school class, she may do the work of the deaconess, she may help in the Dorcas Society or the Missionary Volunteer Society, or the Missionary society— but always as a helper, never as an officer. The minute she accepts an office, she becomes a tar­get. Let her stand apart, and be looked up to as a wise and helpful counselor in all things per­taining to the church, and not be looked down on as a competitor fox its official posts.

I say I came to that conclusion many years ago. A third of a century of ministerial labor has not given me any reason to change that con­clusion in the slightest degree. I hold it now more firmly than ever.

The Home and the Children

Of all men a minister is a "city ... set on a hill," that "cannot be hid." Everything he does is under observation. Everything he does exerts an influence on someone else. That places him under a very great responsibility. But it opens a wide field for usefulness, too.

A minister's home can be made the most forceful example of good works and Christian living. It should be made such. The practice of daily worship about the family altar, the whole circle of family instruction, the principles of Christian education, the regulation of conver­sational habits, the little but important cour­tesies of home life, will all bear a concurrent testimony to the principles and standards set forth in the pulpit.

Habits of order also form an important part of this Christian model, everything being done at its proper time, everything being reserved to its proper use, everything being kept in its proper place. Regularity and promptness in the payment of bills, and strict avoidance of debts, bear about as weighty a testimony as words spoken in the pulpit.

With respect to the children of the minister's family, care must be taken in their training and control to give a practical illustration of the rules of order, of submission, of respect. How many of us in this matter are wise for others, and yet unwise for ourselves. Perhaps nowhere are we so liable to self-deception, or so little open to conviction, as in the management of children.

In all these matters of family life, and of per­sonal character, together with his household ar­rangements, the conduct of his wife, and the dress and habits of his children, as well as his furniture and his table, a minister should expect to be the subject of most scrutinizing observa­tion and remark. The correctness of his family system to a large extent will become the stand­ard of his people. If in these matters there are inconsistencies, these are bound to furnish ex­cuses for the neglect of duty, or the positive in­dulgence of sin, on the part of others.

So it is of great importance that a minister's family, his house, his occupations, his conduct, and everything connected with him, shall be consistent. All family arrangements are to be made subordinate to his ministerial duties. His life is to be one which is characterized by Chris­tian self-denial, holiness, cheerfulness, courtesy, and love. If in all these things his experience does not show the pattern as well as the doc­trine, then his public ministrations are neutral­ized and his words made of no effect.

* Carlyle B. Haynes, The Divine Art of Preaching, pp. 177-184.