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Home - A Taste of Heaven
Perhaps we understand and appreciate the pleasures of home better when we can enjoy them no longer. What lingering looks and loving thoughts do we turn back to the home of our childhood! How, when the snow has fallen upon our heads, and life's winter is passing over us, do we turn to the sunny spot which is still embalmed in our hearts and memories as the fairest on earth! A boy goes away from his native place; he grows up to be a man, mixes with the great, eager world, and becomes part of it; he fights, and struggles and presses on in the battle for position and wealth, and is perhaps unsuccessful. But what are his first thoughts then? Feeling body and spirit alike weary, being worn out by the efforts he has had to make, it becomes necessary for him to have rest and change. Then the hitherto unspoken thought finds utterance: "I will go to the old place where I was born; I shall get well and strong."
And with what overwhelming emotions does he gaze on the old familiar places! There is no meadow like that at the back of his father's house, no broad river that can at all equal the little silver stream which ran by the cottage door. The man cannot keep back the tears as he gazes, for O,the years that give us a little take away so much! Men speak well of him, he has climbed the hill, and has been warmed in the rays of prosperity. The years have given him a name, and position, and the increase of riches, but they have stiffened the arms that clasped him, and stilled the voices that called him by the old pet names; and as for the cottage where his father and mother lived, it is either altogether pulled down and lost, or its floors are trodden by the feet of strangers, and the faces that used to brighten at his approach lie white and still beneath the daisies. But, even with that great loss in his heart, the man loves with a tenderness beyond his power of expression the dear little spot which even now he calls home.
Seeing that home is so attractive, that it so clings to the heart even in after years, what kind of place should it be? And how can we all live good lives therein? Even were there no other reason than this which we have given, there is need that all who have anything to do with home, with its duties, and pleasures, and enjoyments, should use their utmost endeavors to promote its prosperity and secure its happiness. It is, indeed, a sad thing when persons allow themselves to feel carelessly about home, and those who dwell in it. "Anything will do for this evening; nobody will call, and I shall not leave home." We would rather say entertain strangers cheerfully, if they call, but keep your best, your very best, for home. The true life, the life that may be made the fullest and most satisfactory, where there is most room for the exhibition of virtue, and where vice dare not lift its head, is that which is lived in a well-conducted Christian home. We earnestly hope that before long we may all have learned to value our homes more, and to be skillful in beautifying them, so that they may not only be to us as places in which to dwell, but as foretastes of the heavenly home.
Posted by lilypress at September 7, 2005 5:26 PM
