Of the qualifications and duties of a minister's wife, enough has been written to stock a small library. My own very positive conviction has always been that her vows were made primarily, not to a parish, but to her own husband; and if she makes his home and heart happy; if she relieves him of needless worldly cares; if she is a constant inspiration to him in his holy work, she will do ten-fold more for the church than if she were the manager and mainspring of a dozen benevolent societies. There is another obligation antecedent to all acts of Presbytery or installing councils--the sweet obligation of motherhood. The woman who neglects her nursery or her housekeeping duties, and her own heart-life for any outside work in the parish does both them and herself serious injury. If a minister's wife has the grace of a kind and tactful courtesy toward all classes, she may contribute mightily to the popular influence of her husband; and if she is a woman of culture and literary taste, she can be of immense service to him in the preparation of his sermons. The best critic that ministers can have is one who has a right to criticize and to "truth it in love." Who has a better right to reprove, exhort and correct with all long suffering than the woman who has given us her heart and herself? There are a hundred matters in the course of a year in which a sensible woman's instincts are wiser than those of the average man. There is many a minister who would have been spared the worst blunders of his life, if he had only consulted and obeyed the instinctive judgment of a loving and sensible wife. If we husbands hold the reins, it is the province of a wise and devoted wife to tell us where to drive. It is very probable that my readers have suspected that this portraiture of a model wife for a minister was drawn from actual life; and they are right in their conjectures. In the discourse delivered to my flock on the twenty-fifth anniversary of my pastorate was the following passage, to whose truth the added years have only added confirmation, "There is still another sweet mercy which has been vouchsafed to me in the true heart that has never faltered and the gentle footstep that has never wearied in the pathway of life for two and thirty years. From how many mistakes and hasty indiscretions her quick sagacity has kept me, you can never know. If you have any tribute of thanks for any good which I have done you, do not offer it to me; go carry it down to yonder home, of which she has been the light and the joy, and _lay it at her unselfish feet."_ On that occasion (for the _only_ time) I heard a murmur of applause run through my congregation.