But alas! love of self rather than
the pure love inculcated by Jesus Christ most often rules. Brought
together from different paths, unlike, it may be, in natural
temperament, perhaps differing in opinion, the mother wishing to retain
her wonted control over her son, the wife feeling hers the superior
claim, there springs up a contest which is the fruitful source of
unhappiness, and which mars many an otherwise fine character. Before us
in memory's glass as we write, sits one of a most fair and beautiful
countenance, but over which hang dark clouds of care, and from the eyes
drop slowly bitter tears. She is what all around her would call a happy
wife and mother. Fortune smiles upon her, and the blessing of God abides
by the hearth-stone. Her husband is a professing Christian, as is also
his yet youthful-looking mother and the wife herself. Beautiful children
gambol around her, and look wonderingly in her face as they see those
tears. What is the secret of her unhappiness? She deems hers a very hard
lot, and yet if we rightly judge, could her sorrow be resolved to its
elements, it would be found that the turmoil of her spirit is occasioned
solely by the fact that she finds it hard to maintain her fancied
rights, her desired superiority over her husband and servants, because
of the presence of her calm, firm, dignified mother-in-law, whose very
lips seem chiseled to indicate that they speak only to be obeyed.
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