| The Best Things in Life |
Chapter 8 |
Page 6 |
It ought not to be hard to love our own, and to show our love to them in all sweet and gentle ways. Surely we ought to take to our own loves best. Yet Christians, those bearing the name of Christ, have been known to go right from the Holy Communion to their own homes, and instantly to break out in bitter words, in carping and criticism, in blame and fault finding, in ill temper, and disgraceful accusations. If there is any place in this world which should be hold to us, which should be like the very house of God to us, sacred as the Lord’s Supper, and which should call out our deepest reverence, our warmest love, it is our own home. If we are Christians anywhere in this world, let it be in our own home, where we are so loved and trusted. If we must be sullen, bitter, gloomy, selfish, and sour, somewhere, let it not be where our loved ones wait for us, and where their hearts cry out for tenderness.
On of the most pathetic sentences George Eliot ever wrote is this: “Oh, the anguish of the thought that we can never atone to our dead for the stinted affection we gave them, for the little reverence we showed to that sacred human soul that lived so close to us, and was the divinest thing God had given us to know.” Let us not fail to make our home life sacred and holy. If even on the bells of the horses we write, “Holy unto the Lord,” let us not neglect to make the home in which we dwell, pray, live, and love, a fit place for Christ to tarry in, a sweet and gentle place for our dear ones to grow up in.
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