Occupation a Blessing by Talmage

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 11, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 10.

Occupation a Blessing.

By Talmage

THE most unhappy women in our communities to-day are those who have no engagements to call them up in the morning; who, once having risen and breakfasted, lounge through the dull forenoon in slippers down at the heel, and with disheveled hair, reading Ouida's last novel; who, having dragged through a wretched forenoon and taken their afternoon sleep, and having passed an hour and a half at their toilet, pick up their card-case and go out to make calls; and who pass their evenings waiting for somebody to come in and break up the monotony. Arabella Stuart never was imprisoned in so dark a dungeon as that.

There is no happiness in an idle woman. It may be with hand, it may be with brain, it may be with foot; but work she must, or be wretched forever. The little girls of our families must be started with that idea. The curse of our American society is that our young women are taught that the first thing in their life is to get somebody to take care of them. Instead of that, their first lesson should be how, under God, they may take care of themselves. We now and here declare the inhumanity, cruelty, and outrage of that father and mother who pass their daughters into womanhood having given them no faculty for earning their livelihood. Madame De Stael said: "It is not these writings that I am proud of, but the fact that I have faculty in ten occupations, in any one of which I could make a livelihood."—Talmage.