Hence you may consider the present as your noviciate to the future;
the family circle at home is the image of that with which you must
live at a later time; and while your duties and trials will vary with
your position, there is one obligation that always remains
invariable; that is obedience. If you have learned well how to obey
your parents whom God has given you, you will find it easier in after
life to bend your will when obliged in submission to that of another.
At present holy obedience is not painful to you; on the contrary, it
is a pleasure, as it is a means by which you can please your dear
parents whom you love; and by force of habit it is now so deeply
engraved in your heart as to be an act of second nature. But other
times and other circumstances will present new difficulties, when
perhaps you will be obliged to obey a man of your own age, possessed
of none of those qualities that give authority and prestige to command.
The familiarity that exists between the married couple which, when
truly Christian, is one of the greatest charms of their life, not
unfrequently becomes for woman an obstacle to the observance of
obedience; but she has reason to rejoice when her delinquency does
not diminish the sacred authority of her husband's commands.
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