"A friendWedded into our life is more to usThan twice five thousand kinsman one in blood."
Such was the friendship of Ruth and Naomi. Orpha loved Naomi, kissed her, and returned satisfied to her early home; but Ruth cleaved unto her, saying:
"Entreat me not to leave thee,And to return from following after thee:For whither thou goest, I will go;Where thou lodgest, I will lodge:Thy people shall be my people,And thy God my God:Where thou diest, will I die,And there will I be buried:The Lord do so to me, and more also,If aught but death part thee and me."
The keeping of a friend like the keeping of a fortune, lies in the getting, although in friendship much depends upon circumstances of association. However subtle may be the circumstances which bring friends together, or whatever natural agreement may exist between their natures, still there is always a conscious choosing of friends. In this choosing lies the secret of abiding friendship. Young says:
"First on thy friend deliberate with thyself;Pause, ponder, sift: not eager in the choice,Nor jealous of the chosen; fixing fix;Judge before friendship, then confide till death."
Steadfastness and constancy such as this seldom loses a friend.
Last of all, abiding friendship is grounded in virtue. Says a famed writer on Friendship: "There is a pernicious error in those who think that a free indulgence in all lusts and sins is extended in friendship. Friendship was given us by nature as the handmaid of virtues and not as the companion of our vices. It is virtue, virtue I say... that both wins friendship and preserves it." And closing his remarks on this immortal subject, Cicero causes Laelius to say: "I exhort you to lay the foundations of virtue, without which friendship can not exist, in such a manner, that with this one exception, you may consider that nothing in the world is more excellent than friendship."
We have set in order some facts, incidents, and lessons gathered from a hasty trip to the old country during the summer of 1899. The journey was made in company with Rev. C.F. Juvinall, for four years my room-mate and fellow-student, and my estimable friend. On Wednesday, June 21st, we sailed from Boston Harbor; reached Liverpool, England, Saturday morning the 1st of July; visited this second town in the British kingdom; stopped over at the old town of Chester; took a run out to Hawarden Estate, the home of Gladstone; changed cars at Stratford-on-Avon and visited the tomb of Shakespeare; staid a half day and a night in the old university town of Oxford, and reached London on the evening of July 4th. Having spent a week in London, we crossed the English Channel to Paris; remained there two days, then made brief visits to the battlefield of Waterloo, to Brussels, Amsterdam, Hull, Sheffield, Dublin, and back to Liverpool. We sailed to Boston and returned to Chicago by way of Montreal and Detroit, having spent forty-nine days—the intensest and delightfullest of our lives. At first, we hesitated to treat this subject from a point of view of personal experience, but since it is our purpose to incite in others the love for and the right us of all helpful resources of happiness and power, it seemed to us that we could no better accomplish our purpose with respect to this subject than to recount our own observations from this one limited, imperfect journey.
AN EYE-OPEN AND EAR-OPEN EXPERIENCE.
One is always at a disadvantage in relating the faults of others, for he seems to himself and to his friends to be telling his own experience. We were about to speak of the superficial way in which Americans travel. One who has traveled much says that "the average company of American tourists goes through the Art Galleries of Europe like a drove of cattle through the lanes of a stock-market." Nor is it the art gallery and museum alone that is done superficially. How many persons before entering grand old Notre Dame, or the British Houses of Parliament, pause to admire the elaborate and expansive beauty of the great archways and outer walls? It is possible to live in this world, to travel around it, to touch at every great port and city, and yet fail to see what is of value or of interest. A man on our boat going to Liverpool, said that he had traveled over the world, had been in London many a time, but had not taken the pains to go into St. Paul's, nor to visit the Tower of London. A wise man, a seer, is one who sees. It is possible to live in this world, and not to leave one's own dooryard, and yet to possess the knowledge of the world, and to tell others how to see. Louis Agassiz, the scientist, was invited by a friend to spend the summer with him abroad. Mr. Agassiz declined the gracious offer on the ground that he had just Planned a summer's tour through his own back yard. What did Agassiz find on that tour? Instruction for the children of many generations, a treatise on animal life, and later a text-book of Zoology. Kant, the philosopher, the greatest mind since Socrates, was never forty miles from his birthplace. On the other hand, Grant Allen, author, scholar, and traveler, says: "One year in the great university we call Europe, will teach one more than three at Yale or Columbia. And what it teaches one will be real, vivid, practical, abiding... ingrained in the very fiber of one's brain and thought.... He will read deeper meaning thenceforward in every picture, every building, every book, every newspaper.... If you want to know the origin of the art of building, the art of painting, the art of sculpture, as you find them to-day in contemporary America, you must look them up in the churches, and the galleries of early Europe. If you want to know the origin of American institutions, American law, American thought, and American language, you must go to England; you must go farther still to France, Italy, Hellas, and the Orient. Our whole life is bound up with Greece and Rome, with Egypt and Assyria." But whatever advantage travel may afford for broad and intense study, whatever be its superior processes of refinement and learning, yet it is well to remember this, that at any place and at any time one may open his eyes and his ears, his heart and his reason, and find more than he is able to understand and a heart to feel! You can not limit God to the land nor to the sea, to one country nor to one hemisphere. Thus the kind of travel of which we speak is the eye-open and ear-open sort.
Let us note first, then, that travel is a study of history at the spot where the event took place. The history of a nation is a record of its great men. You tell a faithful story of Columbus, John Cabot, and Henry Hudson; of Winthrop, John Smith, and Melendez; of General Wolfe, General Washington, Patrick Henry, and Franklin; of Jefferson, Adams, Jackson, and Webster; of Abraham Lincoln, Wendell Phillips, John Brown, and General Grant; of John Sherman, Grover Cleveland, and William McKinley, and you an up-to-date history of the young American Republic, acknowledged by every country to have the greatest future of all nations. So, if one reads with understanding the inscriptions on the monuments of Gough, O'Connell, and Parnell, he will get the story of the struggles of the Irish. Enter London Tower, "the most historical spot in England," and recount the bloody tragedies of the English people since the time of William the Conqueror, 1066 A.D. Here we have a "series of equestrian figures in full equipment, as well as many figures on foot, affording a faithful picture, in approximate chronological order, of English war-array from the time of Edward I, 1272, down to that of James II, 1688." In glass cases, and in forms of trophies on the walls, we find arms and armor of the old Romans, of the early Greeks, and Britons, and of the Anglo-Saxons. Maces and axes, long and cross bows and leaden missile weapons and shields, highly adorned with metal figures, all tend to make more vivid the word-pictures of the historian. Of the small burial-ground in this Tower, Macaulay writes: "In truth there is no sadder spot on earth than this little cemetery. Death is there associated, not, as in Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's, with genius and virtue, with public veneration, and with imperishable renown; not, as in our humblest churches and church-yards, with every thing that is most endearing in social and domestic charities; but with whatever is darkest in human nature and in human destiny, with the savage triumph of implacable enemies, with the inconstancy, the ingratitude, the cowardice of friends, with all the miseries of fallen greatness and of blighted fame." We note a few names chiseled here: Sir Thomas More, beheaded 1535; Anne Boleyn, beheaded in this tower, 1536; Thomas Cromwell, beheaded, 1540; Margaret Pole, beheaded here, 1541; Queen Catharine Howard, beheaded, 1542; Lady Jane Grey and her husband, beheaded here, 1544; Sir Thomas Overbudy, poisoned in this tower, 1613. Since travel is a study of history at the spot where the event took place, let us cross the rough and famed English Channel to visit one of the many noted spots of France. We select the site of the Hotel de Ville or the town-hall of Paris. "The construction of the old hall was begun in 1533, and was over seventy years in its completion. Additions were made, and the building was reconstructed in 1841. This has been the usual rallying site of the Democratic party for centuries. Here occurred the tragedy of St. Bartholomew in 1572; here mob-posts, gallows, and guillotines did the work of a despotic misrule until 1789. (As we left for Brussels on the evening of the 13th of July, all Paris was gayly decorated with red, white, and blue bunting, ready to celebrate the event of July 14, 1789, the fall of the Bastile.) On this date, 110 years ago, the captors of the Bastile marched into this noted hall. Three days later Louis XVI came here in procession from Versailles, followed by a dense mob." Here Robespierre attempted suicide to avoid arrest, when five battalions under Barras forced entrance to assault the Commune party, of which Robespierre was head. Here, in 1848, Louis Blanc proclaimed the institution of the Republic of France. This was a central spot during the revolution of 1871. The leaders of the Commune party place in this building barrels of gunpowder, and heaps of combustibles steeped in petroleum, and on May 25th they succeeded in destroying with it 600 human lives. A new Hotel de Ville, one of the most magnificent buildings in Europe, has replaced the old hall. This is open to visitors at all hours. To study history at the spot where the event took place means work as well as pleasure, so we took our luncheon and sleep in our car while the train carried us to Brussels, and out to Braine-l'Alleud, where, on the beautiful rolling plain of Belgium, June 18, 1805, Napoleon Bonaparte met his Waterloo, and Wellington became England's idol.
A railway baggageman was on our train returning to his home in Cleveland, Ohio. In conversation, he said: "I have been with this company for twenty-two years; have drawn two dollars a day, 365 days in the year for that time, and I haven't a dollar in the world, but one, and I gave it yesterday for a dog. But," said he, "I have a good woman and the greatest little girl in the world, so I am happy." This is one of a large class of persons who receive fair wages all their lives, and yet die paupers, because they plan to spend all they make as they go along. In conversation with a gruff, old Dutch conductor between Albany and New York City, I ventured to ask him if he had ever crossed the ocean. "No," he said, "nopody eber crosses de ocean, bud emigrants, and beoble vat hab more muney dan prains."
Travel is a study of religious institutions. Among the most interesting in Europe, that we visited, are Wesley's Chapel, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's Cathedral, and Notre Dame. The Church of Notre Dame, situated in the heart of Paris on the bank of the Seine, was founded 1163 on the site of a church of the fourth century. The building has been altered a number of times. In 1793 it was converted into a temple of reason. The statue of the Virgin Mary was replaced by one of Liberty. Busts of Robespierre, Voltaire, and Rosseau were erected. This church was closed to worship 1794, but was reopened by Napoleon 1802. It was desecrated by the Communards 1811, when the building was used as a military depot. The large nave, 417 feet long, 156 feet wide, and 110 feet high, is the most interesting portion of this massive structure. The vaulting of this great nave is supported by seventy-five huge pillars. The pulpit is a masterpiece of modern wood-carving. The choir and sanctuary are set off by costly railings, and are beautifully adorned by reliefs in wood and stone. The organ, with 6,000 pipes, is one of the finest in Europe. "The choir has a reputation for plain song." On a small elevation, in the center of London, stand the Cathedral of St. Paul's, the most prominent building in the city. From remains found here it is believed that a Christian Church occupied this spot in the times of the Romans, and that it was rebuilt by King Ethelbert, 610 A.D. Three hundred years later this building was burned, but soon it was rebuilt. Again it was destroyed by fire, 1087, and a new edifice begun which was 200 years in completion. This church, old St. Paul's, was 590 feet long, and had a leaden-covered, timber spire, 460 feet high. In 1445 this spire was injured by lightning, and in 1561 the building was again burned. Says Mr. Baedeker, whose guidebook is indispensable in the hands of a traveler, "Near the cathedral stood the celebrated Cross of St. Paul, where sermons were preached, papal bulls promulgated, heretics made to recant, and witches to confess, and where the pope's condemnation of Luther was proclaimed in the presence of Woolsey." Here is the burial place of a long list of noted persons. Here occurred Wyckiff's citation for heresy, 1337; and here Tyndale's New Testament was burned, 1527. It was opened for divine services, 1697, and was completed after thirteen years of steady work, at a cost of three and a half millions of dollars. This sum was raised by a tax on coal. The church is in the form of a Latin cross, 500 feet long, with the transept 250 feet in length. "The inner dome is 225 feet high, the outer, from the pavement to the top of the cross, is 364 feet. The dome is 102 feet in diameter, thirty-seven feet less than St. Peter's. St. Paul's is the third largest church in Christendom, being surpassed only by St. Peter's at Rome." Three services are held here daily. The religion of Notre Dame is Roman Catholic, but that of St. Paul's and Westminster is of the Church of England. What shall we say of Westminster Abbey, the most impressive place of all our travel! As my friend and I entered here and took our seats for divine worship, preparatory to visiting her halls, and chapels, and tombs, I think I was never more deeply impressed. I said to myself, "What does God mean to allow me to worship here?" and I seemed to realize how little my past life had been. I felt that circumstances and not I myself had thrust this new privilege, and thereby new responsibility, upon me. Westminster Abbey! A church for the living, a burial-place for the honored dead; a monument to genius, labor, and virtue; England's "temple of fame;" the most solemn spot in Europe, if not in the world! Here lie authors, benefactors, and poets; statesmen, heroes, and rulers, the best of English blood since Edward the Confessor, 1049 A.D. We must now leave this sacred spot to visit, if possible for us, a more sacred one, the birthplace of Methodism, or more accurately speaking, in the words of Bishop Warren, the "cradle of Methodism."
On City Road, London, near Liverpool Street Station, is located the house, chapel, burial-grounds, and tomb of John Wesley. Across the street, in an old Nonconformist cemetery, are the graves of James Watt, Daniel Defoe, and John Bunyan. Across the narrow street to the north is the tabernacle of Whitefield. We learned that Friday, July 7th, was reopening day for Wesley's Chapel. What a distinguished body of persons we found at this meeting! Dr. Joseph Parker was the speaker of the day. The Rev. Hugh Price Hughes, president of the Conference, presided at the memorial services. Rev. Westerdale, present pastor, successfully managed the program of the day, especially the collections, for he met the expense of the rebuilding and past indebtedness with the sum of over fifteen thousand dollars. He told those discouraged ministers with big audiences to go and take courage from what the mother-church, with her small number of poor parishioners, had done. In the evening, Bishop Warren, on his return to America, called in and gave an interesting talk. He was followed by Fletcher Moulton, member of Parliament. You may not realize the feeling of gratitude with which we took part in this eventful service of praise, prayer, and rededication! On the next day we returned to see the books, furniture, and apartments of Wesley, himself. We sat at his writing desk, stood in his death-chamber, and lingered in the little room where he used to retire at four in the morning for secret prayer. From here he would go directly to his preaching service at five. Wesley put God first in his life, this is why men honor him so much now that he is gone. We took a farewell view of the audience-room from the very pulpit into which Wesley ascended to preach his Good News of Christ. From the several inscriptions on Wesley's tomb, we copied the following one: "After having languished a few days, he at length finished his course and life together. Gloriously triumphing over death, March the 2nd, Anno Domine, 1791, in the eighty-eight year of his age."
In Liverpool, on the day of our arrival, July 1st, an old, gray-haired man was shining my shoes. He observed that I was from across the water, and that an Englishman can readily tell a Yankee. He began to praise America. He said that Uncle Sam was only a child yet, that America was destined to be the greatest country in the world; that her trouble with Spain was only a bickering; that the present engagement was only his maiden warfare, and that he "walked along like a streak of lightning."
Saturday evening, July 8th, witnessed the greatest military parade in London for thirty years. The Prince of Wales reviewed twenty-seven thousand London volunteers. Early in the morning citizens from all over England began to gather in front of the English barracks, and at the east end of Hyde Park. By two o'clock in the afternoon hundreds of thousands had packed the streets and dotted the parks and lawns, until, in every direction one could witness a sea of faces. After the royal and military procession began, the patient Johnnies, with their sisters, sweethearts, wives, mothers, grandmothers, and great-grand-mothers, stood for five hours to see it go by. The Englishman does not tire when he is honoring his country. At the close of this parade we dropped into a barbershop for a shave. The gentleman seemed to understand that I was a long ways from home. "You fellows," I said, "can tell us as far as you can see us." "Yes," said he, "by your shoes, your hat, your coat, your tongue, and even by your face. We can tell you by the way you spit. A spittoon here, pointing about ten feet away, give a Yankee two trials, he will hit it every time."
Travel is a study of the genius of man as shown in architecture, in sculpture, and in painting. Ninety-seven plans were submitted for the Houses of Parliament, including Westminster Hall. That of Sir Charles Barry was selected, and the present imposing structure was built, covering eight acres, at a cost of $15,000,000. The style is perpendicular (Gothic), with carvings, intricate in detail and highly picturesque. The building faces the river with a 940 feet front, but her three magnificent square-shaped towers rise over her street front. The clock tower at the northwest corner is 318 feet high, the middle tower is 300 feet, and the southwest, or Victorian tower, is 340 feet high. The large clock with its four dials, each twenty-three feet in diameter, requires five hours for winding the striking parts. The striking bell of the clock tower is one of the largest known; it weighs thirteen tons, and can be heard, in favorable weather, over the greater portion of London. One never tires in looking at this noble building. It is appropriately adorned inside and out with elaborate carvings, statuary, and paintings. Here are located the Chamber of Peers, the House of Commons, and numerous royal apartments, lavishly fitted up to be in keeping with the office and dignity of the building.
Crystal Palace, situated about eight miles southeast of St. Paul's, consists entirely of glass and iron. Its main hall, or nave, is 1,608 feet long, with great cross sections, two aisles, and numerous lateral sections. The two water towers at the ends are each 282 feet high. If you were at the World's Fair in Chicago, and visited the Transportation Building, you may imagine something of the magnitude and beauty of Crystal Palace, with her orchestra, concert hall, and opera-house; with her fountains, library, and school of art; with her museums, gardens, and arenas; with her parks, panoramas, and her numerous exhibits of nature and art. Near the center of the palace "is the great Handel Orchestra, which can accommodate 4,000 persons, and has a diameter twice as great as the dome of St. Paul's. In the middle is the powerful organ with 4,384 pipes, built at a cost of $30,000, and worked by hydraulic machinery. An excellent orchestra plays here daily." The concert-hall on the south side of the stage can accommodate an audience of 4,000. An excellent orchestra plays here daily. "On each side of the great nave are rows of courts, containing in chronological order, copies of the architecture and sculpture of the most highly civilized nations, from the earliest period to the present day." The gardens of Crystal Palace cover two hundred acres, and are beautifully laid out "with flowerbeds, shrubberies, fountains, cascades, and statuary." "Two of the fountain basins have been converted into sport arenas, each about eight and one-half acres in extent." Nine other fountains, with electric light illuminations, play on fireworks nights and on other special occasions. It is common for 15,000 visitors to attend these Thursday night firework exhibits. Colored electric light jets deck the fountains, flower-beds, and halls. Crystal Palace was designed by Sir Joseph Paxton, and cost seven and a half million of dollars. Well may it be called London's Paradise.
Shall we say that the greatest piece of constructive architecture of any country is that of Eiffel Tower! Situated on the left bank of the Seine River, it overlooks Paris and the country for fifty miles around.
In its construction, iron caissons were sunk to a depth of forty-six feet on the river side, and twenty-nine and one-half on the other side. When the water was forced out of these caissons by means of compressed air, "concrete was poured in to form a bed for four massive foundation piers of masonry, eighty-five feet thick, arranged in a square of 112 yards. Upon this base which covers about two and a half acres rises the extraordinary, yet graceful structure of interlaced ironwork" to a height of 984 feet. Eight hundred persons may be accommodated on the top platform at once. It was completed within two years' time, and is the highest monument in the world. Washington monument ranks second, being 555 feet high. From the summit of Eiffel Tower one may secure a good view of Paris, her public buildings, chief hills, parks, and boulevards, monuments, and embankments. An imitation of Trajan's column in Rome, is 142 feet in height, and thirteen feet in diameter. It is constructed of masonry, encrusted with plates of bronze, forming a spiral band nearly 300 yards in length, on which are represented the "battle scenes of Napoleon during his campaign of 1805, and down to the battle of Austerlitz. The figures are three feet in height and many of them are portraits. The metal was obtained by melting down 1,200 Russian and Austrian cannons. At the top is a statue of Napoleon in his Imperial robes. This column reflects the political history of France." The design sculptor is Bergeret. For their antiquity the mummies and statues in the Egyptian galleries of the British Museum are very interesting. They embrace the period from 3600 years before Christ to 350 A.D. "The tomb of Napoleon by Visconte," and "the twelve colossal victories surrounding the sarcophagus by Pradier," are among the finest works of Parisian sculpture. The sarcophagus, thirteen feet long, six and one-half feet high, consists of a single huge block of reddish-brown granite, weighing upwards of sixty-seven tons, brought as a gift from Finland at a cost of $700,000. The Louvre, Paris, contains one of the finest art galleries in Europe, and with the Tuilleries, covers about eight acres, "forming one of the most magnificent places in the world."
In our limited experience at travel we have yet to find a single object of beauty or utility that is not the product of skill, of genius, of great labor. Every monument bears testimony of struggle, of bloodshed, of hard-earned victory; beneath every tomb that honor has erected rests the body of incarnate intelligence, fidelity, and courage. In the shadow of every great cathedral lies collected the moth and rust from the coppers of myriad-handed toilers of five and ten centuries. The towers and domes of London, and Paris, and Amsterdam, and Dublin are monuments to the genius of the architect and to the faithfulness of the common toiler. The parks and gardens tell of centuries of wise and faithful application of the laws of growth, of symmetry, of design in form and color. The historic chapels of worship and learning breathe the very incense of devotion and reverence for truth; while the conservatories of sculpture and painting preserve what is divinest in human experience. Age alone can produce a great man or a great nation. Decades for the man and centuries for the nation; these are the measuring periods for real achievement. But all this is on the human side. Correggio and Titian in painting; Bacon and Bailey in sculpture; Raphael and Michael Angelo in sculpture and painting; and Sir Christopher Wren in architecture,—the works of art of such as these elevate and purify one's thought and feeling. But the profoundest impressions that come to one from travel, come alone from the works of nature. The Crystal Palace in London can not compare in glory with the crystal ripples of a mid-ocean scene. The botannical gardens of the Tuilleries in Paris do not stir the soul as does the splendor of the Welsh mountains. The rockery plants of Phoenix Park, Dublin, are insignificant compared with growths of ferns and moss On the rock ledges of Bray's Head, south of Dublin. No panorama that man has painted can equal the scene of Waterloo battle-field, observed from the earthen mound near the fatal ravine. So, we shall always find it true, that as the heavens are higher than the earth, so the thoughts of God are higher than the thoughts of man, and his ways than man's ways.
"RECENTLY a London magazine sent out 1,000 inquiries on the question, 'What is home?' In selecting the classes to respond to the question it was particular to see that every one was represented. The poorest and the richest were given an equal opportunity to express their sentiment. Out of eight hundred replies received, seven gems were selected as follows:
"Home—A world of strife shut out, a world of love shut in."Home—The place where the small are great and the great aresmall."Home—The father's kingdom, the mother's world, and thechild's paradise."Home—The place where we grumble the most and are treatedthe best."Home—The center of our affection, round which our heart'sbest wishes twine."Home—The place where our stomachs get three square mealsdaily and our hearts a thousand."Home—The only place on earth where the faults and failingsof humanity are hidden under the sweet mantle of charity."
Dr. Talmage defines home, as "a church within a church, a republic within a republic, a world within a world." Dr. Banks writes, "It is not granite walls, or gaudy furniture, or splendid books, or soft carpets, or delicious viands that can make a home. All of these may be present, and yet it be only a dungeon, if the great simplicities are not there." Sings one:
"Home's not merely roof and room,Needs it something to endear it.Home is where the heart can bloom,Where there's some kind heart to cheer it.Home's not merely four square walls,Though with pictures hung and gilded,Home is where affection calls,Filled with charms the heart hath builded.Home! Go watch the faithful doveSailing 'neath the heavens above us,Home is where there's one to love,Home is where there's one to love us."
We believe the five sweetest words in the English language to the largest number of persons—words which carry with them intrinsic meaning and blessing are these: "Jesus," "Mother," "Music," "Heaven," "Home." "Twenty thousand people gathered in the old Castle Garden, New York, to hear Jennie Lind sing. After singing some of the old masters, she began to pour forth 'Home, Sweet Home.' The audience could not stand it. An uproar of applause stopped the music. Tears gushed from thousands like rain. The word 'home' touched the fiber of every soul in that immense throng." In an early spring day, when the warm sun began to invite one to bask in his rays, my wife, delicate in health, lay drowsing on some boards near the house. The large garden spot spread out to the rear of her; a beautiful grassy lawn carpeted round a deserted house, granary, and shop-building in front of her. She was living over her girlhood days. She thought she was in the old home orchard, where she used to doze, dream, and play. The songs of the birds seemed the same; the same gentle breezes played with her hair; the same passers-by jogged along the roadside; the same family horse nibbled the tender grass in the barnyard. How sad, and yet how sweet are the memories of early days! The tender associations of home never leave one, however roughly the coarse hand of time would tear them away. It is because home means love that its associations and lessons remain.
ESSENTIALS TO A HAPPY HOME.
Although home means love, yet love alone may not insure happiness. In addition to love, without which a true home can not exist, we select four essential requisites to make home life useful and happy. These are intelligence, unselfishness, attractiveness, and religion.
First, Intelligence. Much of the misery of the world in individual and family life is due to gross ignorance. Once the father of a family said to me, "We did not get our mail to-day, I miss my reading." Knowing the man we were surprised at such a remark, and ventured to ask him what papers he took. A list of ten or a dozen papers was named. All of them were newspapers. One was a general daily, two were local dailies, and the rest were local weekly papers. No intelligent person would have carried over three of those papers from the post-office. This man spent hours upon a class of reading that should be finished with a few minutes each day. In this same family the mother told me that she had never rode on a railway train, and that she had never been outside of her own county. This is an exceptional case, but it illustrates how that ignorance makes thrift and happiness impossible in a home, neither of which belong to this family. Here every law of health is violated, foresight in providing for the physical comforts of the home is wanting; little attention is given to the education of the children; no sacrifices to-day enrich to-morrow; life is a humdrum, a routine, a dread, with no exuberance, joy, or hope. In time, such a life leads to failure and gloom, to secret, then to open vice, and to a final shipwreck of the home and of the individual. In a similar yet in a less marked way, the career of many a home is ended. No one may be directly to blame, but want of common knowledge and common wit have set a limit beyond which such a family may not go. The intelligent family has some sort of a history which it is their privilege and duty to perpetuate. Members of the intelligent family are moral sponsors for one another, the mother for the daughters, the father for the sons, the brothers and sisters for one another. They find their own best interests in the interests of one another. The intelligent family is not superstitious. They act upon the wisdom of the ancient poet, "every one is the architect of his own fortune." They look to cause and condition for results. They spell "luck" with a "p" before it. The intelligent farmer plants his crop in the ground, rather than in the moon, and looks for his harvest to the seed and the toil. The intelligent merchant locates his business on the street of largest travel and makes the buying of his goods his best salesman. The intelligent man of letters thrives at first by making friends of poverty and want, until one day his genius places his name in the temple of honor. So it is with the artist, the musician, the inventor, the architect. To be happy and useful in one's lot, one must know something of the sphere in which he lives and works, of its practical wisdom, and must be prepared to live, or glad to die for the cause he serves. No indolent, superstitious, or ignorant family need look for abiding happiness nor expect to be permanently useful.
Then unselfishness is essential to happy home life. It is a serious matter for two persons, even when they are naturally mated, to undertake to live together in peace and harmony. It is a more serious matter when they are not naturally mated. It is more serious still when children enter the home, for they bring with them conflicting tendencies, dispositions, and wills. Often have we wondered how it is that families get on as well together as they do when we have considered, what natural differences exist between them, and what little teaching and discipline have been used to harmonize these differences. An harmonious home is truly begun in the parental homes of the husband and wife. Two persons may be perfectly suited to one another, and yet they may be selfish in wanting their own way. As one grows up, if he is allowed to have his own way regardless of the rights and privileges of others, he becomes a selfish person, and his parents are to blame. A selfish person in the home plans for his own comfort, decides and acts as he wishes, and seeks to satisfy his own desires. He does not take into consideration the plans, wishes, and desires of other members of the family. It is understood that his authority is supreme. Not one member of the family dreams of expressing dissent to his dominion. A so-called peace of this sort is not uncommon among families. This supreme authority may be vested in husband, or wife, or in one or all of the children. A forced peace of this kind is worse than rebellion and is as bad as open war. How can any persons be so presumptuous as to think that any person, or a number of persons, exist solely for his comfort and advantage! Let two such selfish persons get together, a permanent riot is assured. Unselfishness in the home means thoughtfulness, discipline, self-control. Each child is taught the rights and privileges of others as well as his own. When two unselfish persons join their lives there begins a holy and beautiful rivalry in seeking the rights and privileges of one another. The very atmosphere of such a home is deference, respect, and love. As the stranger, the neighbor, the friend, comes and goes, he catches the spirit of it and carries it with him into his own and other homes. Children born into such a home early imbibe its spirit, and, O, the inspiration one receives from going into that family circle! No home-life can be an inspiration and a blessing where selfishness is allowed to reign. Nor can it be useful and happy.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox describes a selfish, though a kind and loving husband:
THEIR HOLIDAY.
THE WIFE:Our house is like a garden—The children are the flowers,The gardener should come, methinks,And walk among his bowers.So lock the door of worry,And shut your cares away,Not time of year, but love and cheer,Will make a holiday.THE HUSBAND:Impossible! You women do not know,The toil it takes to make a business grow:I can not join you until very late,So hurry home, nor let the dinner wait.THE WIFE:The feast will be like Hamlet,Without the Hamlet part;The home is but a house, dear,Till you supply the heart.The Christmas gift I long forYou need not toil to buy;O, give me back one thing I lack:The love-light in your eye.THE HUSBAND:Of course I love you, and the children, too.Be sensible, my dear. It is for youI work so had to make my business pay;There, now, run home, enjoy your holiday.THE WIFE, TURNING AWAY:He does not mean to wound me,I know his heart is kind,Alas, that men can love us,And be so blind—so blind!A little time for pleasure,A little time for play,A word to prove the life of loveAnd frighten care away—Though poor my lot, in some small cot,That were a holiday.
To preserve the family circle, the home must be made attractive. No amount of practical wisdom, of Puritanic piety, nor mere kindly treatment will hold a family of children together until they are strong enough to resist the temptations of the world. The home must be made more attractive than the street or places of amusement. The average boy or girl who loses interest in home and uses it chiefly as an eating and sleeping place, does so with good reasons. Home has lost its charm. No provision is made for his pastime and pleasure. Not finding this at home he will go elsewhere in search of it. "An unattractive home," says one, "is like the frame of a harp that stands without strings. In form and outline, it suggests music, but no melody arises from the empty spaces; and thus it is an unattractive home, is dreary and dull." How may home be made attractive? We have presupposed a certain amount of education and culture in the home by maintaining for it intelligence and unselfishness. Any home that is intelligent and unselfish is capable of being made attractive. In the first place, in as far as it is practicable, each member of the family should have a room of his own and be taught how to make it attractive. Here, one will hang his first pictures, start his own library, provide a writing desk, and learn to spend his spare moments. Recently we visited a home in Chicago. The rooms are few in number and hired. The family consists of father, mother, and three children, now grown. During our short stay in the home I was invited into the boys' room. The walls are literally covered with original pencil designs, queer calendars, odd pictures; the dresser and stand are lined with books and magazines, with worn-out musical instruments, art gifts from other members of the family, and ball-team pictures, while two lines of gorgeous decorations stretch from wall to wall. This is still these young men's little world, their interests have centered here. No less than five kinds of musical instruments were visible in this home. The walls of the living room and parlor are made beautiful with simple tasteful pictures made by the daughter, whose natural gift in art was early cultivated. The table, shelves, and mantelpiece are decorated with china bowls, plates, and vases, simply, yet elegantly adorned. This work was done by the daughter and mother. Not a large but a choice collection of flowering plants relieved the bay window of its emptiness. This is an attractive home. The children never have cared to spend their evenings on the street nor at places of amusement. Games of skill, innocent, instructive, and entertaining, may be used to make home life more attractive. Only let the amusements of the home be under the direction of father and mother, and be practiced by them. Here is a chance to teach shrewdness, honor, interest, and by all means, moderation. To overdo at games and amusements is more harmful than to overwork.
Religion is essential to happy home life. A family may get on for a time very smoothly without prayer, Bible study, faith in God, and love for Jesus Christ; but no family life is completed without a storm, many storms of some sort. Years may pass as on a quiet sea, but one day at high noon, or, perhaps, in the silent, early hour, a small cloud is seen in the distance; it comes nearer; the wind begins to blow, the thunders peal, the lightnings flash, the old home, for so long an ark of safety, is being tossed on the billowy waves. A testing time is at hand. Mother is gone, or father has ventured too far and lost all; or son has disgraced the family name; or daughter is in shame; or the darling of the home is no more! It makes a vast difference who is at the helm when the storms of home life rage. It is a mark of highest wisdom to place the family ship under the world's best Captain, Jesus Christ. He never lost a life. He alone can arrest the lightning, quiet the waves, inspire confidence, and restore peace and good will in any storm. But religion is not only useful in trouble, it is an ornament in peace and prosperity, in the making and building of the home. Tempers must be controlled, dispositions cultivated, conduct improved, hearts softened, and minds purified and disciplined. To accomplish all of this, no substitute can be made for the spirit and faith of Jesus Christ.
"'Dear Moss,' said the thatch on an old ruin, 'I am so worn, so patched, so ragged, really I am quite unsightly. I wish you would come and cheer me up a little. You will hide all my infirmities and defects; and, through your loving sympathy no finger of contempt or dislike will be pointed at me.' 'I come,' said the moss; and it crept up and around, and in and out, till every flaw was hidden, and all was smooth and fair. Presently the sun shone out, and the old thatch looked bright and fair, a picture of rare beauty, in the golden rays. 'How beautiful the thatch looks!' cried one who saw it. 'How beautiful the thatch looks!' said another. 'Ah!' said the old thatch, 'rather let them say, 'How beautiful is the loving moss!'" So it is with the religion of Christ, it adorns and beautifies the life who really wears it; so that the plainness of that life is covered, its ruggedness softened, and its "pain transformed into profit and its loss into gain."
Charles M. Sheldon gives as an essential for a permanent republic, "A true home life where father, mother, and children spend much time together; where family worship is preserved; where honesty, purity, and mutual affection are developed."
J.R. Miller beautifully sums up the secret of happy home-making in one word—"'Christ.' Christ at the marriage altar; Christ on the bridal journey; Christ when the new home is set up; Christ when the baby is born; Christ when the baby dies; Christ in the pinching times; Christ in the days of plenty; Christ in the nursery, in the kitchen, in the parlor; Christ in the toil and in the rest; Christ all along the years; Christ when the wedded pair walk toward the sunset gates; Christ in the sad hour when the farewells are spoken, and one goes on before and the other stays, bearing the unshared grief. Christ is the secret of happy home life."
THE HOME-MAKER.
Just as a surly husband, a dissipated father, or a reckless son may blight a home and destroy its happiness, so may a thoughtful, virtuous, and kind man in the home change its very atmosphere and help to make it a heaven. As a home-maker man has the ruggeder part. It is his to provide. The man who falls short of this in the home does not do his part. No woman can respect a man much less love him, who places her, her work, her life, her home, her world under constant embarrassment by a scant and niggardly provision. She loses her ambition, ceases to make her self and her home attractive; disorder, filth, unwholesome food, lack of spirit on her part is the result. She can not be to him, most of all, what he expects her to be, a companion, a counselor, a comfort—a home-maker. Also, it is the part of the man in the home to shield the woman from the heavier burdens and responsibilities. Let him count the cost of his enterprises, secure himself against hazardous speculations, and give his wife and children to realize that his shoulders, and not theirs, are to bear the load of financial obligation and material support. This leaves the woman with her finer instincts and sensibilities to make the home the dearest spot on earth to husband, children, and to all who cross her threshold. The house is her dominion. There she is queen. What a tender and beautiful one she may become!
SOME PRACTICAL HINTS.
The true home-maker does not spend all of her time with her ducks, chickens, pigs, and cows, nor yet with her neighbors, her club, nor her Church. She finds some time to cultivate her intellectual nature and the finer feelings of her children. She does not degenerate into a mere household drudge. She is not the slave of her husband, but his companion. If she has musical ability, she keeps up the practice of her music; if she is inclined to literature, she reads some every day. Whether literary or not, every woman should spend some time each day in reading that she might keep abreast with the world, at least with her companion, in the movements and thoughts of every-day life. The true home-maker plans to have a few minutes each day which she calls her own, in which she may do as she pleases regardless of call or duty, that she might relax herself, remove the strain of intense effort, rest, give her nature its free bent and inclination. It will pay her in every way. She will accomplish more and better work in the busy hours. A spirit and a force will characterize every effort. The women of to-day are overworked. They can not do themselves, their families, not their homes the true spiritual service that it is their part to do. Plan for a few minutes rest with the daily routine of care. But how is one to do this with so many demands made upon her? For she is expected to be seamstress, laundress, maid, cook, hostess, a companion to her husband, a trainer of her children, a social being, and a helper in the Church. If it is impossible or impracticable for one to have a servant, she will find these few minutes for daily recreation and study only in a wise choice of more important duties, and will allow the less important ones to go undone. Many housewives could well afford to keep a helper. It becomes a question which is of greater importance, the life and health of the wife and mother, or the paltry wages of a servant? We knew a family in Illinois who were quite able to keep help in the home, but did not do so. The mother made a slave of herself, in a few years broke in health, and left a large family of small children to struggle alone in the world. The stepmother, who soon came into the home, could afford one servant girl and part of the time two. This is a common experience in ill-managed homes. Or this question arises, Which is of greater importance, to make more money or to improve the moral tone of the home; to seek to gratify the outer senses, or to seek to elevate the spiritual life of the children and the parents? In pleading for rest and study for the mother in the home we plead for the highest interests of the entire family. For how can a wife be a companion to a husband when she is made irritable and nervous from overwork and worry. How can she be a true mother to her children and neglect their mental and spiritual growth?
Napoleon once said: "What France wants is good mothers, and you may be sure then that France will have good sons." Thomas McCrie, an eminent Scotch preacher, used to tell, with great feeling, of how his mother, when he was starting out for school in the city, accompanied him along the road a little way, and then leading him into the field where she could be alone, prayed with him, that he might be kept from sin in the city, and become a very useful man. That moment was the turning point in his life. A few minutes a day spent with the eager, susceptible child mind, will bring everlasting blessing upon the father and mother.