And fifthly comes your housework.  This is the juggernaut department which grinds many a woman to skin and bones—­and her husband discards the remains!  When it comes to housekeeping a woman has need of all the love, wisdom and power she can muster in her hours of silence.  Even a five room flat or cottage is more than one woman can keep spotless and allow time for anything else.  Many things must be left undone.  The wise woman simplifies to the last degree compatible with comfort.  Useless bric-a-brac is dispensed with.  “Not how much but how good,” is her rule when buying.  A few good things kept in place, are better than a clutter of flimsy things which pander only to an uncultured esthetic taste—­and make work. Order is the wise woman’s first law in housekeeping; cleanliness her second, which is like unto the first in importance.  She lets extra rooms, furniture and fallals go until she can pay well to have them cared for.  The same rule obtains in her kitchen and her personal dress.

The wise woman thinks of comfort and allows time for the joys of life, wherefore all her life is a pleasure.

The foolish woman is ground under the wheels of routine.  To her, housework is a stern “duty” which comes first, and to which body, mind, personal appearance, happiness, the joy of living, all must be sacrificed.

Lastly, firstly, and all the time, the wise woman is guided in what to do and in what to leave undone, by the Spirit of Love; whilst the foolish woman is guided by the Spirit of Appearances.

Note the order in which I have written these needs of life; an exact reversal of the usual order.  Housework last, and the Spirit of Comfort first.  The tendency of every woman is to lose herself in troubling over the many things of her household.  If she would be happy, useful, young and growing she MUST turn her life the other side up.

The best way to begin, the only successful way so far as I know, is by MAKING time for the hour of reading and meditation and silence.  She must take the time, by sheer force of will—­take it until it grows into a habit which takes her.  Out of this hour will come first peace and self-control; and gradually she will find unfolding out of this peace and control, the wisdom to know what to do, and how; and what not to do.  From this unfolding comes the ONLY power which can make new thought practical to the individual case.

Are you satisfied with yourself and your condition?  Then pursue your old ways.

Are you dissatisfied with yourself and surroundings? In order to change them YOU must change—­that which was first with you must become last AND THE LAST MUST BE FIRST.

Be still and know the I AM God of you; and, lo, all things shall be added.  But the things must be last, not first.

Seek ye first the kingdom of Good in yourself, and to be right with it; and all things shall be added.  All things shall be added to YOU, not to other things.