On Visiting, Company, and Religious Meetings. On going out, and having company. Religious meetings. A story to illustrate.

There are some particulars where domestics feel that their employers have no right to control them, and on these points I hope you will allow me, as a friend, to offer a little advice.

You perhaps may feel that it is your own concern what company you visit, and who visit you, and that, after your work is done, you have a right to go where you please without asking leave of your employers.

But here I wish you would try yourselves by “the golden rule.” Suppose you to look forward to a time when you are the mistress of a family, and hire persons to help you do the work, would you not in such a case feel thus: I have hired these persons and pay them for their time, and they have agreed to do my [111]family work at the time and in the way I wish. Now they cannot know, without asking, when I can spare them and when I shall need their help. There are always times when, if the regular work of the day is done up, some extra work, or some sickness, or other causes, may make it needful for them to stay at home. Therefore, I think it right to expect that those I hire will not either go out, or invite company to come and see them, without first inquiring of me whether it will be convenient. Do you not think you should feel and think thus? Now, therefore, whatsoever ye would that others should do unto you, do ye the same unto them. In obedience, therefore, to this law of Christ, I would advise you never to go out anywhere, and never to invite persons to visit you, without first inquiring of the mistress of the family whether it will be convenient to her.

In regard to selecting your companions, remember the Word of God, “He that walketh with the wise shall be wise, but the companion of fools shall be destroyed.” There is nothing that so much influences our character and happiness, as the companions we associate with, [112]and therefore it is of the utmost consequence that you find your associates among the most respectable, amiable, and conscientious persons, and that you shun the society of the gay, thoughtless and unprincipled.

There is another point where domestics feel that their employers have no right to control, and this still more demands your attention, in order that you may do what is right and best for yourselves. I refer to the frequent attendance on evening meetings, and the late hours which are sometimes the consequence of this. Now what I wish you to reflect on, in reference to this, I can best exhibit by relating another story.
A Story.

Once there was a very good king, and he had a large residence at some distance from his court. At this residence there was a large household of servants, whose business it was to keep it in constant readiness, so that whenever the king wished, he could go there and find every thing in order.

Now these servants were very apt to be [113]careless and negligent of their business, and often became so engrossed in their own amusements, that they forgot entirely the business they were placed there to do. In consequence of this, the king used often to send messengers to them, who would strive to keep them in order, and who wrote down in a book the rules that should guide them in the performance of every duty. But there still continued great havoc, waste and misrule. At last the only son of the king, who was a very tender-hearted prince, and loved these servants very much, came among them; for he feared that unless something was done, when his father arrived, they would all be turned away, and become miserably poor and wretched. So this excellent prince came and staid a long time with these servants; he worked with them himself, and showed them by his own example, the right way of doing every thing; and then he wrote down the rules in a book, and placed it so that every one could go to it and learn their duties.

But it was not a long time after the prince returned to his father’s court, before all the servants [114]were divided up into parties about the proper way of doing the work. All agreed that the prince told them that his father would soon come, that he would come suddenly and unexpectedly—and that it was his will that every part of the house should be cleansed, and every thing put in order. There was no dispute about this.

But the parties were divided in this manner: A large portion of them maintained that the most important thing to be done was to have the water for cleaning house kept very hot, and that it must be hot all the time—and so they spent most of their time in getting fuel and blowing the fire—and they would sit up sometimes half the night to make fires and keep the water hot. And they considered themselves as the best servants in the house for their care and diligence in this respect, and upbraided their companions for allowing so much coldness to get in the water they were to use.

Then there was another portion that were very much excited about the manner in which the water was to be used.

They seemed to think it was indispensable [115]that it should be poured on all over the floor, so as to cover every part of it, before commencing the use of the mop or floor cloth. They insisted on it that this was the way the prince directed them to use it—that he had it put on in this manner himself, and that, in the book of directions, he was very exact in stating that it must be used thus. And they insisted upon it, as one of the most important of all their duties, that the water should be used in this particular way, so that their thoughts and efforts were much taken up with this matter.

Then there was another party, and they thought that it was of the greatest consequence that the servants should understand who were to be their overseers to direct in the way the work was to be done. They maintained that the young prince had expressly directed who should be overseers and who should not, so that even if a man was well qualified to direct, and his fellow servants were willing to be directed by him, it would not do to go on so. And they spent a great deal of time and labour and feeling, in arguing with their fellow-servants to try to convince them that most of the [116]overseers were not put in their place in the proper way, and did not direct others in the proper manner.

Then there was another large party, who insisted that it was indispensable, that their fellow servants should believe every thing that was written in the Book of Directions, exactly according as they understood them. They maintained that if men did not believe right they never could work right. They were sure that they themselves did understand and believe the Book of Directions, just as the prince intended, and they spent a great deal of time in arguing and contending about what was to be believed. And they insisted, that before any man went to work in their part of the house he should declare what his belief was, and how he understood the meaning of the directions in the book.

Now all these things no doubt were important. It certainly was needful to have the water hot, and it was desirable that it should be put on the floors in the way directed by the prince, and it was important that the proper overseers should direct the rest, and that they [117]should do it in the proper way, and it was very important that the Book of Directions should be understood and believed, in the sense intended by the young prince.

But the difficulty was, that they became so much engrossed about the particular points where they differed, that they were in danger of forgetting the great thing about which they all agreed, viz. the cleaning of the house. And some of them got into such contentions about these matters, that instead of cleaning the house, they really made it more disorderly and unclean.

But there was a considerable number in all these parties, who looked at these things more wisely. And they managed matters in this way. They concluded, that as it was needful to have the water hot, they would not hinder those who were heating it, but get all the warm water they could from them, or from any one else, and go to cleaning the house with it. They concluded that as they could not all agree as to the proper way of putting on the water, that each should put it on in the way he believed the prince had taught, and not quarrel [118]with the rest, who thought another way was right. They thought it was important to have the right overseers,............