American Woman's Home: Or, Principles of Domestic Science;: Being a Guide to the Formation and Maintenance of Economical, Healthful, Beautiful, and Christian HomesStowe, Harriet Beecher
Religion
American Woman's Home: Or, Principles of Domestic Science;: Being a Guide to the Formation and Maintenance of Economical, Healthful, Beautiful, and Christian Homes
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Home economics
As one course, then, is perfectly safe and another involves great
danger, it is wrong and sinful to choose the path of danger. There is
no peril in drinking pure water, milk, the juices of fruits, and
infusions that are nourishing and harmless. But there is great danger
to the young, and to the commonwealth, in patronizing the sale and use
of alcoholic drinks. The religion of Christ, in its distinctive feature,
involves generous self-denial for the good of others, especially for
the weaker members of society. It is on this principle that St. Paul
sets forth his own example, "If meat make my brother to offend, I will
eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to
offend." And again he teaches, "We, then, that are strong ought to
bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves."
This Christian principle also applies to the common drinks of the
family, tea and coffee.
It has been shown that the great end for which Jesus Christ came, and
for which he instituted the family state, is the training of our whole
race to virtue and happiness, with chief reference to an immortal
existence. In this mission, of which woman is chief minister, as before
stated, the distinctive feature is self-sacrifice of the wiser and
stronger members to save and to elevate the weaker ones. The children
and the servants are these weaker members, who by ignorance and want
of habits of self-control are in most danger. It is in this aspect
that we are to consider the expediency of using tea and coffee in a
family.
These drinks are a most extensive cause of much of the nervous debility
and suffering endured by American women; and relinquishing them, would
save an immense amount of such suffering. Moreover, all housekeepers
will allow that they can not regulate these drinks in their kitchens,
where the ignorant use them to excess. There is little probability
that the present generation will make so decided a change in their
habits as to give up these beverages; but the subject is presented
rather in reference to forming the habits of children.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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