WOMAN'S WORK IN A COUNTRY PARISH {1} 

I have been asked to speak a few words to you on a lady's work in
a country parish.  I shall confine myself rather to principles
than to details; and the first principle which I would impress on
you is, that we must all be just before we are generous.  I must,
indeed, speak plainly on this point.  A woman's first duties are
to her own family, her own servants.  Be not deceived: if anyone
cannot rule her own household, she cannot rule the Church of God.
If anyone cannot sympathise with the servants with whom she is in
contact all day long, she will not really sympathise with the poor
whom she sees once a week.  I know the temptation not to believe
this is very great.  It seems so much easier to women to do
something for the poor, than for their 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.  A lady
can go into a poor cottage, lay down the law to the inhabitants,
reprove them for sins to which she has never been tempted; tell
them how to set things right, which, if she had the doing of them,