To
write worthily of home is to put language to its best use, the
hand to its finest work, and the mind to its noblest fellow
service. Only in a high sense of the value and sacredness of
home can this work be fittingly performed. In the thought of
civilized humanity, home is the one peculiarly dear and holy
place where bud and blossom and fruit are the richest growths
of human life. It stands in all good minds for purity, affection,
comfort, civilization. It is, as it were, an altar to which
are brought the best fruits of the spirit in consecration, and
where the ministries to the best life are more abundant than
elsewhere in this world. It is so generous and pliantly adapted
to the varying conditions of men, that it is the one place in
which all believe, which all love, and which has blessings in
which all gratefully rejoice. Not the rich and fortunate only,
but the poor and defeated, are glad in the peculiar and unbought
helps which it has to confer upon them. Not the educated and
refined only, but the ignorant and coarse, find in it a something
of comfort, peace and refreshment, not elsewhere realized. It
is everybody's place of all places for what the heart most craves
and the life is most enriched by. "However humble, there
is no place like home." It has gone into story and song,
and the life of men as the one gloriously human and yet half
divine place which symbolizes the ideal blessedness which we
all crave. We can find no word more fittingly expressive of
our highest thought of perfected life than heavenly home.
And home is not only for all, but it is for the whole of
life. It is not for a brief period only, as childhood, youth,
middle or old age, or for seasons of peculiar dependence, but
for the whole lengthened period from the cradle to the grave.
The child, the youth, the man, all need and enjoy, and cannot
well do without, a home. In poverty and in plenty, in sorrow
and joy, in defeat and victory, in sickness and health, in foul
and sunny weather, the home is alike the blessed retreat and
welcoming inn of every human traveler through life all along
the journey.
To make and keep a home is the great labor of
men everywhere. The poor man labors for his home, and so does
the rich. The toiler with his hands and the worker with his
brains, the magistrate, the judge, the teacher, minister, statesman,
as well as the merchant, mechanic, and farmer. The inspiration
of all labor comes from the home. There are our personal wants,
and the wants of our dear ones, and the tastes and pleasures
of the whole. There is the dear companion we love and are glad
to toil for; there is the baby we would die for, and the little
boy who is our pride, and the little girl who is our joy, and
the blessed old mother whom we venerate, and the grand old father
whom we honor, all inmates and a part of our home; we toil for
them, and would think meanly of ourselves if we did not. It
is called sacrifice to do this, to spend our life and strength
for the dear ones at home, but we do not count it so. It is
our life and joy. We feel more manly and honored, the more we
do our best to make a good home, and its inmates good and happy.
