MISTRESSES AND MAIDS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 8309, 6 May 1905, Page 3

MISTRESSES AND MAIDS.

Faiti-ft-l Service., {Horn.' Notes.) To hear mistresses talk you'd think there were no good servants to be had nowadays, and to hear the maids you d think there were no good mistresses, said old Betty. " There's Mary Brooks, who's had ten places in a, twelvemonth. ' Mistresses is all alike^ says she. 'There isn't a good one amongst em. And this morning in comes Mrs, Barnard, who can't keep servants anyhow, as everybody knows. "Tis all along o' the Board schools,' says she. 'If you'll excuse mo, ma'am,' says I, ' then there must a been Board schools in .St Paul's time, for to read his epistles you'd think there was a deal of -difficulty even then.' " And when you come to think of it, St Paul is very emphatic in this connection. He had a very high ideal of what a good servant ought to be; but then he had , just as high an ideal of the duties of a .master. "Servants," he says, "be obedient unto your masters, and please them well in all things, showing all good fidelity, 'Not with eyeservice as menpleasers, but as the servants of Christ, with goodwill doing service.' 'Whatever ye do, do it heartily.' " And to the masters:. "And, ye masters, , do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening, knowing that your -Master also is in heaven. Neither is there respect of persons with him. -»''<jriye unto your servants that which is just ans equal.' " "A dearth of ,good servants," I heard someone say the other day. "I don't wonder I Count up and see how many friends 4and relations you have under whom you yourself would carex to work as a servant. After thinking carefully over mine, I can only remember one, and her cook has been with her fourteen years, and her parlour maid fifteen !" And it really isn't a bad test. How would you like to be one of your own servants ? Wouldn't your little restrictions, your little finicky, , irritating "ways" that they have to put up with, jar on you sometimes if positions were reversed ? Wouldn't you like a little more time "off duty" and more opportunities for getting fresh air than you give them? The first thing to ask, if someone working under us is not behaving satisfactorily, is : "Am I treating him oir. her in the way likely to make them do their best for me?" And the test jworks just as well the other way round. Supposing you were in the master's post, how would you like to have people under you who behave as you are behaving? Would you be pleased if they scamped their work as you sometimes do, caring little how it is done, so long as it will just pass muster? Would you like them to show so little consideration for your comfort and convenience as you do for other people? Ah, no ! We none of us' like these things done to us, though we do them often enough to other' people ; but unless we are faithfully performing our part of the contract and trying to be faithful servants and masters, we have np right to complain if other people do not prove faithful either. Thereis another point that we often forget, and that is 1 to ''forbear threatening." "If you don't improve, I shall " says the impatient mistress. And Mary is much the same. "If things are going on like this, I shall leave." Both quite forgetting that to I threaten is bad -policy, and' apt to ■ptft-l people into a " don't care " mood that certainly isn't conducive to good work or to improvement in any way. Yesu it is not new rules that we need Jf but only to follow the ones already given. In our Bibles we can find directions how to treat one another, whether as servants or masters, or in any other condition of life for that matter. "The New Testament is the only book ever written that will never be out of date," I once heard a clergyman say, and certain it is that in it we can find good advice applicable to most situations. But we, don't read our Bibles as muoh as we might in these days, and so we miss learning many a wholesome lesson.