e hands, more
than in those of any one else, lies the salvation of the men of our
sphere in society from the miseries that oppress them.

Ye women and mothers who deliberately submit yourselves to the law of
God, you alone in our wretched, deformed circle, which has lost the
semblance of humanity, you alone know the whole of the real meaning of
life, according to the law of God; and you alone, by your example, can
demonstrate to people that happiness in life, in submission to the will
of God, of which they are depriving themselves. You alone know those
raptures and those joys which invade the whole being, that bliss which is
appointed for the man who does not depart from the law of God. You know
the happiness of love for your husbands,--a happiness which does not come
to an end, which does not break off short, like all other forms of
happiness, and which constitutes the beginning of a new happiness,--of
love for your child. You alone, when you are simple and obedient to the
will of God, know not that farcical pretence of labor which the men of
our circle call work, and know that the labor imposed by God on men, and
know its true rewards, the bliss which it confers. You know this, when,
after the raptures of love, you await with emotion, fear, and terror that
torturing state of pregnancy which renders you ailing for nine months,
which brings you to the verge of death, and to intolerable suffering and
pain. You know the conditions of true labor, when, with joy, you await
the approach and the increase of the most terrible torture, after which
to you alone comes the bliss which you well know. You know this, when,
immediately after this torture, without respite, without a break, you
undertake another series of toils and sufferings,--nursing,--in which
process you at one and the same time deny yourselves, and subdue to your
feelings the very strongest human need, that of sleep, which, as the
proverb says, is dearer than father or mother; and for months and years
you never get a single sound, unbroken might's rest, and sometimes, nay,
often, you do not sleep at all for a period of several nights in
succession, but with failing arms you walk alone, punishing the sick
child who is breaking your heart. And when you do all this, applauded by
no one, and expecting no praises for it from any one, nor any
reward,--when you do this, not as an heroic deed, but like the laborer in
the Gospel when he came from the field, considerin