A simple desire to please God, to walk by the rule of his word, and to do all to his glory; like the famed philosopher’s stone, turns all the gold, consecrates the actions of common life, and makes everything that belongs to our situation in duty in civil in domestic life is part of our religion. When she is making our mending the children’s clothes, or teaching them, and when her maid (if serious) is cleaning the kitchen, or making a sauce, they may be as well employed, as when they are upon their knees or at the Lord’s Table. It is an unpleasant mistake to think all the time as lost which is not spent in reading, or hearing sermons, or prayer. These are properly called means of grace; they should be attended to in their proper season; but the fruits of grace are to appear in our common daily course of conduct. It would be wrong to neglect the house of God; it would be equally wrong to neglect the prudent management of her own house. It is chiefly as a mother in mistress of a family, that she can let her light shine to his praise. I would not have her think that she should serve the Lord better in any other station, than in the one to which his providence has placed her. I know that family cares are apt to encroach too much, but perhaps we should be worse off without them.
John Newton, Letters (Coffin), 159 in Tony Reinke, Newton on the Christian Life (Wheaton: Crossway, 2015), 169.