Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 December 1886 — Ministers’ Wires. [ARTICLE]

Ministers’ Wires.

Some young “clericus,” having written to Prof. Gouge, asking "how to select a young lady to till the responsible position of a minister’s wife,” ho replies thus in the Albany Evening Journal. In ninety-nine and three-quarter cases out of a hundred asking about* what your wife will be is as futile as studying an almanac to find out where lightning will strike in Montgomery County next August, or what kind of weather you will have the first week in September. It is judicious and wise to select’ the right kind of a lady for a wife, and it would also be pleasant to pick out the spot where we would have a wart if we .had to have one; but, alas, the closest scrutiny and most mature judgment will fail to locate the wart, and in too many cases will fail to secure the woman. You say nothing about love. You have made the mistake that the settler in Nebraska makes when he locates his buildings without considering the cyclone. The cyclone revises the first edition of the settler’s plans, and the second edition so completely covers the ground that the author’s cursory remarks are forgotten. You speak of selecting a wife as you would select furniture. This would be judicious if it would work. But if love gets a grip on you, your present cool judgment would boil coffee in three minutes, and you would think a red-headed girl in a blue sun-bonnet would ornament a village church more than a new steeple and a set of lightning rods. You ought to have a wife considerably older than yourself, say ten years or so. A Roman nose would give her a commanding appearance. If she had curls—-good, big, hard curls, that look like two-inch augers with the points broken off—they would keep the rabble from being too free with her. She should be accomplished. She should be able to work thirty different kinds of tidies. What is home without a tidy ? She should bring to the happy home some of her art works. Any accomplished young woman has some paintings. ' One neighbor I had up in Washington County had his parlor full of his wife’s paintings. Take one of those landscapes and when a string fetched loose and the picture turned around the lake would be • sky and the birds would be the ships, and the sky would be the real estate, and the clouds would answer for cattle feeding on the green sward. Hang that creation of art in any shape and it would still be intelligible and a thing of beauty. Hang it up cornerwise and it would be a plaque representing a thunder storm in the Rocky Mountains. He had portraits his wife had painted. The hair and eyes and mouth were all one color. The soothing effect of those art works was very apparent when he moved his old sick mother into tile best room to die. She was startled whgn she awoke, but after looking at those pictures for a day or two a change was apparent. She told her son she was not only willing to die, she was eager. Thus did art triumph over nature. Such a wife as I am describing would,, help, you in your work. Sewing circles, mite societies, and missionary meetings would be conducted in such a manner as to dispel all levity and inspire respect. Such help would lighten your labors, for one pastoral call with her would last a longtime. Your carpets and furniture would not be worn out by visitors. Sunday school would be as sacred and solemn as a new cemetery with a -white picket fence around it.