THE HOME AND HOME LIFE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 150, 27 June 1931, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE HOME AND HOME LIFE

WEALTH, SAFETY, SERVICE (By H.G.G.) It has been said: “Blessed is the nation that has no annals.” It is a perfectly futile and false benediction. A nation or a family without great memories rarely does anything great. It is interesting to recall that Christ’s disciples were nearly all selected from families distinguished by their piety and worth. Tennyson speaks of a man who sprang from a lineage that for nine centuries had been taught “to hound and hate a lie.” It is mostly out of such a moral atmosphere that the Alan of Destiny emerges. Take, for instance, the families of clergymen. Wo are familiar with the common sneer that the sons of the manse usually turn out badly. The fact is quite the reverse. And the truth is adduced by Bishop Welldon. He undertook the task of searching 66 volumes of the “Dictionary of National Biography.” His research went back to the Reformation. He marked only the names of the children of clergymen who had done something really worth a place in English history, and paid no attention to a large number of others of less importance. Of such notables ho found 1,270 children of clergymen, of lawyers 510, of doctors 350. In other words, “the children of the clergy who have served the State with distinction since the Reformation have exceeded by more than 400 the similarly distinguished children of the legal and medical professions put together, whether since the Reformation or before it.” He goes on to say that English literature would be robbed of half its glory if the contributions of the sons and daughters of clergymen were abstracted from it. 1 mention these things to show the relation of a pure home atmosphere to the growth and development of that type of character which is the saving salt of a nation. The Nation and the Home For long years it has been our national boast that a man’s home is his castle. All of us, I expect, would agree with Wordsworth and Tennyson that “upon the sacredness of the home depends the greatness and stability of a people.” The welfare of the home is vital, both for the individual and society. Gibbon, in his masterpiece makes it quite clear that the decline of the Roman Empire began in the social degradation of the people. Before the imperial forces were driven back and put to rout on the field of battle, the sanctities of home-life had been violated. The defeat began on the hearth stones of the people. The proud Empire was lost because men and women had surrendered purity, truth, and honour in their private lives. And if that happened sixteen centuries ago, it may happen again to-day. The British Empire may never be defeated on land or sea, but it may go the way of other empires if it becomes rotten at the core. That is the danger we have to combat. The point of danger is moral declension, and the field of battle is the home—your home and mine. It is to the home we owe the highest of what we are and have. And must we not ascribe the lowest and most degrading to the same source? Let us look within our own hearts and homes. Let us count well the cost before we lend a hand to anyone or anything seeking the destruction of pure, strong, healthy, natural home-life. Love iu the Home Earth’s trinity—father, mother, child —is bound up in the unity of the home. The report of the reform schools of one country gives 75 per cent, orphans or semi-orphans. Evidently nothing can take the place of the norma! home in which both parents are living. The Psalmist’s word, “God setteth the solitary in families is based upon the fact of His seeing that it was not good for man to live alone. ” We know it in our own experience. They are exceptions who really desire the lonely, solitary life. Something has soured them. They are not normal. The average of us realises and cherishes the. desire for one’s own fireside with one’s loved ones circled around it. Such a poem as “The Cottar’s Saturday Night” warms our heart and creates a healthy ambition. We stand before pictures like 'n’honv’s “The Return of Love’’with hungry eyes and quickened pulse. The picture is a triumph in the handling of landscape, and with rare depth of colour and breadth of treatment portrays the evening sky, the masses of clouds marshalling themselves in the west for the last peep of day, the gathering twilight haze, and the cattle lazily seeking repose. But the chief joy in the picture lies in love’s welcome. A labourer is returning from his toil, and his wife has come out to meet him, carrying their little child. They have just seen each other, and joy and love have sprung up in each of their hearts And this love of man and woman and little child is more beautiful than all the beauty of nature and of sunset. In this cottage homo there is that without which a palace becomes a prison—there is love. “Love wore a threadbare dress of grey, And toiled upon the road all day. Love wielded pick and carried pack, And bent to heavy loads the back. Tho meagre fed and sorely tasked, One onlv wage love ever asked — A child’s white face to kiss at flight, A woman’s smile by candle light.” Home Religion Tho word family comes to us from a root word moaning “servant.” It is the joy of love to serve. The greatest home-lover was Jesus, who for thirty years lived as son ami brother in the house of Mary. lie. was ever among them in the home, and in the world a> one who serves. Many people servo, in the world, but, not at home. Are we doing what we can to make home all that, it ought to be? Do we diligently cultivate what someone has happily -■ailed tlm “art of living together?*' “Is he a Christian?” asked someom •d' Whitefield, concerning another. “ I do not know.” was the answer. “I have never seen him at home.” Is ours a religion that will stand that test?