But this is a great thing, to know what works we should do to please God. By this rule are we to run, just as we see that the world runs, by the rule that it has falsely devised. It is a high, noble blessing which a wife may have when she so conducts herself as to be subject to her husband, inasmuch as she is saved, and her works please God; what can be a happier experience? Therefore whoever wishes to be a christian wife is to reason after this manner: I will not pay regard as to what sort of a husband I have, whether he be a heathen or a Jew, righteous or wicked; but to this I will pay regard, to the fact that God has placed me in the marriage state, and I will be subject and obedient to my husband. Then all her works are precious if she stands in such obedience. But where the influence of attraction is not employed, nothing else will avail:--for you never will succeed by blows in making a wife pious and submissive. If you strike one devil out you will strike two devils in, as they say. Oh! if people who are in the marriage state knew this, how uprightly would they walk; but no one does cheerfully what God has commanded, but all run after that which men have invented. This command God has wished to be so carefully observed, that he authorized husbands to make void the vows which their wives made if they were displeasing to them, as we read in Num. xxx., so that all might go on peacefully and quietly at home. This is one point. Now the Apostle directs further how a woman should conduct herself toward other people.