Chapter XLVII: Continuation.—examples

HOW beautifully this mutual confidence and love is described in the Bible in the case of Abraham and his oldest servant, Eliezer, whom he had set over all his goods. Abraham trusted him with everything, even to go and choose a wife for his son Isaac. He explained to him all his wishes, and made him take an oath that he would not pick out a wife for his son among the heathen women of the Chanaanites, but go to the country and kindred from whence he had come and get one.

Now listen to the conduct of this good servant: When he came to the town where the kindred of Abraham dwelt, he made this prayer; “O Lord, the God of my master Abraham, meet me to-day, I beseech thee, and show kindness to my master Abraham” (Gen. xxiv. 12).

What a love and veneration, what an interest in all that concerned his master, is shown in these words! And when he had succeeded, by God’s help, in discharging the duty which he was sent upon, he was as thankful as if it had been his own matter, and he says: “

Falling down I adored the Lord, blessing the Lord God of my master Abraham, who hath brought me the straight way to take the daughter of my master’s brother for his son” (Gen. xxiv. 48).

The good old man forgets himself in the affection he bears to Abraham and his son Isaac. There is no false pride here, he is not a bit ashamed to speak all the time of his master Abraham. He never overstepped the limit of perfect respect, and yet I am sure there was so much fidelity and goodness about him that he had pretty much his own way, being ruler, as the Scripture says, over all that Abraham had.

Where such feelings exist between both parties, we find them living together for years; for such employers would feel the loss of a faithful helper almost as the loss of a child, and the feeling is the same on the other side.

“What a charm,” says the Baron de Prelle, “when masters and servants grow old together! What a joy to old age when it is served by ancient domestics, accustomed to its mode of life! I have known no house happier in this respect than that of the great Séguier, Chancellor of France. All his servants had grown old with him, and if we did not always see the same faces, we saw always the same persons. As their constitutions were not so strong as his own most of them broke down on the way, and he saw them die before himself, leaving but little behind them, though after forty years’ service in the house of a chancellor.”

So it is written of the great empress, the mother of Charles the Sixth, that at her death she assembled all her household and took leave of them, even to the lowest little servant, calling them by name.

Of the lovely little St. Zita, we read that, her parents hearing of a pious family among the nobility with whom they felt sure their daughter would have a good chance to live virtuously, they brought her to them at the age of twelve years.

At first, before her goodness became known, she was scolded a good deal, and spoken harshly to; but she accepted all so humbly that after a little while they loved her dearly, and even held her in great veneration. There she lived, without ever changing her place, for nearly fifty years, until she was carried to her grave. She loved the children dearly and they loved her. She was always delighted to do them any kindness. It is said in her Life that she felt like a mother to them, and was always ready to take the nurse’s place and relieve her of fatigue and annoyance.

Such ought to be the relation between employers and domestics, where both are Catholics. But, alas! that there are so many cases in which good Catholics are despised or disliked by their domestics. Sometimes the very reason why a girl is dissatisfied and seeks another place is, because a real interest is felt in having her well cared for in all respects, and in seeing her live a good life.

“I declare, there is no living in this house, where you can’t do anything without being brought up for it! What business is it to the madam whether I go to Mass or not? I wish she’d let me alone. I declare, I never will live in a Catholic family again; I’ll go among Protestants, where I sha’n’t always be bothered about going to church and going to confession, and keeping fast days, and keeping abstinence, and this and that. I wish folks would mind their own business!” Such is the language of many a girl who calls herself a Catholic, but who shows little of the spirit of one.

Another good girl has a first-rate Catholic home, where she is liked, and where she gets the highest wages, and light work, and every privilege, and where she might live as long as she likes. All goes along as well as possible for awhile. Then she gets restless. She must have a change; some little foolish annoyance perhaps works on her mind, or, more likely, a mere fancy. She must change her place.

She gets a notion to go with somebody to California, as waiting-maid or cook; or to Australia, or somewhere or other. Off she goes in spite of everything, and in a month’s time she would almost give her right hand to be back again.

At other times she will go off to a Protestant family, where she gets less wages, has harder work, cannot get out to Mass, or to see her friends, and all merely out of a light, foolish head, that does not seem to have a grain of good sense in it. This restlessness is, I have no doubt, a kind of sickness, like home-sickness; and the only way to treat it is, to despise it; to pray to God, and seek peace in your heart in Him in whom alone you can find it. If you change your place on account of it, you only make it worse.

You know how a kernel of corn on a hot griddle flies about, jumps here and jumps there, and can’t be still a minute, when it once gets going. So it will be with you, if you are weak enough to go away from a good place for such frivolous and light reasons.

Put up with a great deal of real difficulty, when you have got a good place, before you think of leaving it. If another girl there is bad, and therefore is disagreeable to you, wait awhile; she may be sent off or go away.

Remember the proverb: “A rolling stone gathers no moss”; and the other: “Go farther and fare worse.” Many a girl has found it so, to her own sorrow. No employer is absolutely perfect and faultless, any more than you are yourself. Don’t fly in a passion, then, when anything disagreeable happens. If they are really good in the main, put up with a defect or fault in them now and then. Overlook it; it will all come right in a little while. They have, no doubt, as much to put up with from you as you from them.

If St. Zita had flown into a passion when she was scolded unjustly, she would have lost the best of places and the happiest life in the world, and never, never, would have become a saint and honored over the whole world, as she is now.